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+{"doc_id": "001f82648d9b2dea7e8b533c3d3c29c1", "text": "Motorists can expect fuel prices to fall sharply in July amid rand resilience and a declining oil price.\nThis is according to the Automobile Association (AA), commenting on unaudited mid-month data released by the Central Energy Fund (CEF).\nThe current picture suggests that road users could be looking at a petrol price decline of between 60 and 64 cents a litre at month end, with diesel showing a 60 cents reduction and illuminating paraffin 57 cents, the AA said.\n“The rand remained mostly stable against the US dollar in the first half of June, with strength in the currency contributing three cents a litre to the drop,” the association said.\n“The big move was from oil, which shrugged off OPEC’s production quotas to drop by around eight percent since the start of the month.”\nThe association said the fuel price will come under pressure if the three major ratings agencies downgrade rand-denominated debt to junk status in future reviews of South Africa’s sovereign credit ratings.\n“That could trigger substantial capital outflow, almost certainly leading to Rand weakness which will be heavily negative for the fuel price,” it said.\n“Barring unexpected political or economic shocks in the lead-up to the next ratings reviews, we expect fuel price movements to mainly depend on international petroleum prices,” the AA said.\nHere’s what you can expect to pay in July:", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/179917/big-petrol-price-drop-coming-in-july/"}

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+{"doc_id": "00afc8a05675e579da30cb0a7b64ffa3", "text": "President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared 15 December as a national public holiday to celebrate the Springboks’ victory in the 2023 Rugby World Cup – a move that has implications for employers and workers in the country.\nSouth Africa will now have a double public holiday, with the extra day off coming before the 16th of December, which is the Day of Reconciliation.\nThis year, 16 December 2023 falls on a Saturday. Only public holidays that fall on Sunday move over to the following Monday, meaning any employees who work the traditional Monday to Friday work week ‘lose out’ on the public holiday.\nHowever, according to Talita Laubscher, partner, and Sian Gaffney, senior associate at law firm Bowmans, with the addition of the 15th as an extra public holiday, these workers will now benefit from a day off.\nOn top of this, workers who typically work a full week (Monday to Sunday), such as retail or shift workers, stand to benefit from both days, depending on which days they would ordinarily work.\nDespite being a Saturday, 16 December 2023 remains an official public holiday in South Africa. This means that weekend workers are still entitled to the public holiday on 16 December 2023 by law.\n“If they do not work on this day, they are entitled to their normal pay. If they do work on this day, they are entitled to double pay, or they can exchange this day for another day, which would then be treated as a public holiday,” the legal experts said.\nThis applies regardless of whether these employees earn above the earnings threshold – currently about R20,100 per month.\nRegarding Friday, 15 December 2023 – if a Friday is a weekend worker employee’s ‘work day’ in a seven-day week, then that employee will be entitled to both 15 and 16 December as public holidays this year.\nHowever, if weekend workers would ordinarily have been off on this Friday, they would ‘lose out’ on the public holiday declared on this day.\n“Which employees benefit from a public holiday is ultimately determined by the day on which the public holiday falls within a calendar year.\n“If it falls on a day they would ordinarily work, they get the day off at full pay. If they work on that day, they get double pay or can exchange the day for another day,” the experts said.\n“If the public holiday falls on a day that they would not ordinarily work – too bad, unless they work on this day and earn below the threshold, in which event they get paid a premium.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/733075/extra-public-holiday-in-december-a-double-win-for-workers-in-south-africa/"}

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+{"doc_id": "012ca454b508baba7a344f4c682560be", "text": "Telecoms group Telkom says it expects a positive turn for its interim period, with an anticipated growth in earnings per share of between 45% and 55%.\nIn a trading update ahead of its results, the group notified shareholders that it expects both earnings and headline earnings to have increased in the six months ending September 2023.\nThis follows a staggering loss of R10 billion posted in its most recent full-year results.\nThe group attributed the increase in earnings to improved performance for the period, with both revenue and EBITDA growth within the guidance provided at the annual financial results presentation for the year ended 31 March 2023.\n“Growth in earnings has also been positively impacted by lower depreciation after asset impairments recognised in FY2023,” it said.\n“This has been partially offset by higher net finance charges in H1 FY2024 as well as the non-recurrence of a R102 million gain on foreign exchange and fair value movements recognised in H1 FY2023.”\nOther factors at play include total depreciation, amortisation and write-offs decreasing by approximately 20% from R3.55 billion in the prior period and net finance charges increasing by approximately 50% from R655 million in the prior period – largely due to lending rate increases as well as a higher net debt balance, Telkom said.\nThe difference between BEPS and HEPS is due to the net impact of impairment of assets and profit/loss on sale of assets.\nThe group noted that it has also restated the headline earnings from the prior period, which were overstated.\n“On 30 September 2022, the group correctly calculated and accounted for tax in the group statement of profit or loss and other comprehensive income. However, the group incorrectly adjusted for the headline earnings, relating to the Profit on disposal and impairment of property, plant and equipment and intangible assets,” it said.\nThis led to a R21 million overstatement of headline earnings and a 4.3c overstatement of HEPS for the period ended 30 September 2022.\nTelkom will report its interim results on or around 21 November 2023.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/731197/telkom-expects-big-jump-in-earnings/"}

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+{"doc_id": "027022a79bf0db0c9fc8ffb02d6b56ce", "text": "Centum-owned Sidian Bank and Stanbic Bank have advanced loans to more than 500 Uber drivers under their respective partnerships with the taxi-hailing company.\nStanbic confirmed that 350 drivers have acquired their own vehicles over the seven-month period after the lender inked a loan deal to help drivers acquire Suzuki Alto vehicles.\nUber partnered with local Suzuki dealer CMC earlier in the year to import the small, low fuel consumption vehicles for the cheaper Chap Chap service the US-based tech company offers.\nStanbic Bank financed drivers with high ratings to own the vehicles within three years.\nSidian, on the other hand, indicated in a report that it had disbursed 150 loans for the year ended March 2018, an increase from the 138 loans indicated by the Centum subsidiary in September last year through the model that is dependent on driver ratings.\n“Sidian Bank has partnered with Uber in a Sh10 billion Vehicle Solutions Programme that gives entrepreneurs convenient and affordable access to quality vehicles. To date, Sidian Bank has supported over 150 Uber driver-partners to acquire their own vehicles,” said Centum in its recent annual report.\nSidian, however, declined to disclose the number of loans disbursed since March to date citing confidentiality concerns.\nStanbic and Uber originally partnered to advance loans to drivers looking to own taxis through a facility that guarantees full financing.\nThe loan attracts a 14 per cent interest per annum within a period of three years.\nREAD: Uber in Sh10 billion financing deal with Sidian Bank\nSidian’s deal with Uber in June 2016 was aimed at disbursing 200 loans of up to Sh1.5 million at concessional rates to drivers with high performance and customer satisfaction ratings.\nEligible drivers must have completed at least 500 trips with Uber and have an average passenger rating score of at least 4.6 points out of the total of five marks. The car loans are charged an interest rate of 10.5 per cent per annum, which is lower than the capped rate of 14 per cent offered by all commercial banks.\nThe finance sector players have been leveraging on the availability of digital data in the taxi app industry to track viability of drivers with respect to awarding loans.\nAccording to Uber, the firm currently has more than 6,000 active driver-partners in Kenya.\nSidian Bank has been forging partnerships in different sectors to grow its loan book including the healthcare segment.\nThe lender and MedicalCredit Fund entered into a Sh2 billion deal for private healthcare service providers to purchase or maintain medical equipment and expand their facilities.\nTo date, Sidian stated in its annual report that it has partnered with more than 400 medical service providers and disbursed over Sh900 million in medical credit facilities.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/companies/uber-driver-loans-from-sidian-stanbic-hit-500-2217666?ref=mondato-insight"}

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+{"doc_id": "029403b5e9ca5ccbd76eb79429362899", "text": "Adapt IT Holdings has been acquired by Volaris Group for R7 per Adapt IT share effective 3 January 2022. Volaris is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Constellation Software Inc, a Canadian listed entity.\nAll conditions and regulatory approvals have now been met, including approval from various competition authorities, the Takeover Regulation Panel as well as the JSE. The deal was also conditional on Volaris acquiring more than 50% of Adapt IT shares.\nVolaris has acquired 63.87% of Adapt IT. Pursuant to the implementation of the deal, Adapt IT will delist from the JSE with effect from 4 January 2022.\nHeadquartered in Toronto, Volaris Group is an international provider of vertical market software and services in several industries. Volaris acquires and grows software businesses that develop specialised software solutions.\n“The acquisition is a wonderful South African success story. Adapt IT was founded in 1996, the business was listed in 1998 and successfully grew its customer base to more than 10 000 customers in 55 countries around the world. With this acquisition, Adapt IT will have the opportunity to expand to many more countries and customers around the globe,” said Tiffany Dunsdon, CEO of Adapt IT.\nAdapt IT now represents Volaris’ interests in the African continent, a region in which Volaris sees opportunities for growth, it said. “The acquisition brings direct foreign investment into South Africa with opportunities for additional growth capital being invested into the country as well as the transfer of best practices.”\nVolaris has expressed confidence in the leadership team of Adapt IT with Tiffany Dunsdon as CEO, Nombali Mbambo as chief financial officer and Tony Vicente as chief operating officer.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/cloud-hosting/548508/adapt-it-acquired-by-volaris-delists-from-jse/"}

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+{"doc_id": "02a2112963e1cad3be239268b61b7a02", "text": "Kenya Airways will be split into various subsidiaries in a State-backed restructuring plan that is aimed at returning the lossmaking national carrier to profitability.\nRoads, Transport and Public Works Cabinet Secretary nominee Kipchumba Murkomen told a parliamentary vetting panel Wednesday that the reforms will lead to the breaking of Kenya Airways along its main business lines of cargo and passenger.\nIts other subsidiaries envisaged by the new administration are charter services and new businesses like drone services.\nMr Murkomen said President William Ruto was working with Kenya Airways and other players to restructure the airline and return it to profitability.\nThe fresh restructuring plan comes after the State dropped the favoured long-term solution that was anchored on nationalisation of the airline.\nThe plan approved by lawmakers in July 2019 would have led to the delisting of the airline from the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).\nThe national carrier has received multi-billion shilling State bailouts amid delayed recovery from a travel slump following Covid-19.\nMr Murkomen told MPs that Nairobi is the leading cargo destination in the region yet KQ, as it is known by its international code, controls only 10 percent of cargo market share.\n“We need to separate cargo from passenger services so that KQ benefits from the business,” Mr Murkomen said.\n“We intend to create subsidiaries in KQ. We need to have a passenger airline, cargo airline and charter airline. We might also need KQ to have other businesses on the side like drone services and surveying services as one way of raising revenue,” he added.\nHe did not offer details how the breakup of KQ will help turn around the carrier that has been in losses for over a decade. KQ’s main business lines—cargo, passenger and handling—are all in losses. Passenger service returned an operating loss of Sh4.5 billion, cargo Sh1.74 billion and handling Sh166 million.\nThis marks a departure from the Treasury’s earlier position to pursue a turnaround under the plan to nationalise KQ. A law to pave the way for the nationalisation of the airline, which had been proposed before the pandemic, is before Parliament.\nKenya wanted to emulate countries like Ethiopia which run air transport assets — from airports to fuelling operations —under a single company, using funds from the more profitable parts to support others.\nAlso read: How Ethiopian-Nigeria Air deal will hit Kenya Airways\nUnder the model approved by MPs, KQ would become one of four subsidiaries in an aviation holding company.\nThe others would be Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, an aviation college and the Kenya Airports Authority operating all other airports.\nThe previous administration, which was replaced by Dr Ruto’s on September 13, pushed for the restructuring of the carrier on the back of the multi-billion shilling bailout after dropping the nationalisation plan.\nMr Murkomen Wednesday told Parliament that the State would not convert its debts or bailout cash into shares. “We do not want to cross the 50 percent shareholding because we want KQ to remain a privately owned company,” he said. The government owns 48.9 percent of KQ shares.\n“We have to ask ourselves why KQ is in the situation it is currently. It is because of mismanagement of project Mawingu, but there is a restructuring process currently underway led by President Ruto,” he said.\nRead: Kenya Airways takes new Sh11bn short term loans\nKQ recorded a ninth consecutive half-year loss, sinking it Sh15 billion deeper into a negative equity position.\nThe airline, which has been surviving on State bailouts since the Covid-19 pandemic, reported a Sh9.8 billion loss in August — a better performance than the Sh11.48 billion loss it recorded in the same period a year earlier.\nIt booked a further Sh5.3 billion loss on hedged foreign exchange differences, driving its total comprehensive loss to Sh14.9 billion.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/companies/ruto-wants-kenya-airways-split-after-collapse-of-state-takeover-3991208"}

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+{"doc_id": "037274d027de137377ff628da050bd3e", "text": "For the digital revolution to make a dent in South Africa’s unemployment, it has to provide work for a wide range of skills, with a particular focus on lower-skilled South Africans, says South Africa in the Digital Age (SADA).\nSADA is an initiative set up to develop a forward-looking economic strategy in the digital age. It is a joint venture by University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), Genesis Analytics and the Pathways for Prosperity Commission.\nIts core mandate is to answer the question: what are the income-generating opportunities for South Africans in the digital revolution? The group has published a report which maps out several pathways for the country to create income-generating work in the digital age, detailing the practical actions required.\nOne such pathway entails exporting globally-traded services at scale.\nSADA set out to answer a pivotal question: what sort of digitally traded services are we South Africans best positioned to provide at scale to the world?\nThe answer, it said, is the category of activities known as global business services (GBS). GBS encompasses call centre work, coding, other ICT services, finance, accounting and legal support, and could be expanded to include new services such as tutoring and long-distance care.\nSADA noted that a quarter-million South Africans already work in GBS, more than double the number employed in the automotive sector. Of these, some 50,000 already service off-shore demand, a number growing by the extraordinary rate of 24% a year, which makes GBS exports one of the fastest-growing job categories in the country.\nWorking closely with the Department of Trade and Industry and the industry body BPESA, SADA said that with the right policy and business environment, another 100,000 GBS export jobs can be added by the end of 2023.\nFive GBS growth levers have been identified – expansion in target source markets where more demand can be captured, re-shoring work done offshore for South African companies, growing ‘shared services’ niches, developing ICT/digital outsourcing, and growing new types of personalised services.\n“If these levers can be activated at speed, the 2023 target is achievable,” the group said. “If the levers can be activated at scale, an even larger prize awaits.”\nSADA estimates that 500,000 GBS export jobs could be generated by 2030 if a national programme encompassing training, financial and other support commensurate with the opportunity is sustained.\nSouth Africa’s competitive advantage lies in the interpersonal and linguistic capabilities of our people, it said.\nIt stressed that for the most part, these are not elite jobs. In terms of qualifications, a South African matric is sufficient. But these matrics do need to acquire additional skills.\nJob creation projections over yellow and green target periods\nSADA highlighted countries including India and the Philippines where capturing this demand for global business services can stimulate serious scale, and achieve a commensurate growth in employment creation and export earnings.\nThe Philippines’ BPO sector grew threefold in 10 years, contributing one-third of the country’s export earnings and employing 1.3 million people by capturing about 15% of the global demand for BPO services.\nIndia’s export IT and BPO sectors are still growing at around 8% per year, contributing over one-quarter of the country’s export earnings and employing over 4 million people, SADA said.\nDistribution of possible jobs created across opportunity areas\nSADA provided a summary of the actions that are most relevant to this pathway of exporting globally-traded services at scale.\nUnder the title: ‘quick wins’ it pointed to actions that can be taken in the next year:\n- Improve efficiency of South Africa’s work visa process: South Africa already has a framework for allowing critical skills in shortage to be brought in from foreign nationals. However the process is inefficient and needs to be improved.\n- Update the relevance of the critical skills list: the work visa process for critical skills in shortage is linked to the critical skills list which is currently outdated and not driven by industry. This needs to be rectified by updating the list.\n- Re-channel budgeted government funds behind jobs in demand: the Sectoral Education and Training Authorities must re-channel skills development funds for training that is most likely to fill jobs in demand.\n- Empower public private teams: industry associations and the dti’s agencies responsible for managing investment incentives and marketing South Africa as an investment destination abroad need to be empowered with rapid approval capabilities for work visas and deals to improve the pace at which global companies relocate work to South Africa in the digital economy.\n- Continue competitive and sufficiently broad incentives: the dti already provides a successful incentive scheme for the job creation in the GBS sector. Going forward, this scheme will need to be adapted to ensure it remains relevant.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/cloud-hosting/367692/is-this-a-blueprint-for-mass-job-creation-in-south-africa/"}

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+{"doc_id": "037f091f54278c90c33fb754a54351e4", "text": "Business groups in South Africa are starting to organise opposition to South Africa’s newly enacted employment equity laws – while opposition party, the DA, gears up to launch a High Court challenge to the laws.\nTrade union Solidarity and business interest group Sagelika announced on Tuesday (6 June) that over 30 organisations have come together to fight the laws, aiming to stamp out any prospect of successful implementation.\nThe groups in question have signed a resolution to fight the proposed Employment Equity Act (EEA) amendments. The participants involved have undertaken to reject the government’s social manipulation system and protest against the law.\nUnder the new Act, the employment minister is empowered to set sector-specific numerical targets for the racial and gender makeup of designated businesses, which must be achieved over five years.\nThe targets are expressed as a percentage of the population, either nationally or provincially, and it is up to designated businesses to choose one or the other in executing their transformation plans, the department said.\nDesignated businesses are all businesses in South Africa that employ more than 50 people. The laws apply to all designated businesses – even those with no intention of doing business with the state.\nOrganisations at the workshop included civil society organisations and political parties, with more than half being business-focused and spanning industry organisations, chambers of commerce, and employer organisations.\nThe new laws, which were signed by President Cyril Ramaphosa in April, are not yet in effect, with the Department of Employment and Labour anticipating promulgation in September 2023.\nDespite this, the laws were met with immediate backlash, and the department has already published the sectoral targets for public comment – drawing criticism from legal experts who warned that the targets may have jumped the gun.\nExperts also poked holes in other aspects of the targets, pointing out that they are not clear in intention, contain numerical and counting errors, and may prove to be unimplementable given the reality of South Africa’s employment landscape.\nLegal challenges\nOne of the participants of the workshop, the Democratic Alliance (DA), said it will approach the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria this week to declare various sections of the EEAA unconstitutional and invalid.\nAccording to the DA, the draft form of the black economic empowerment laws and proposed racial targets for various sectors issued in terms of section 15A last month will, as a result, also fall.\nAt heart of the issue with the laws is that, while they are being touted as targets, they could be interpreted or positioned as racial quotas. The department has denied this, saying the targets are flexible.\nThe DA and other opponents are challenging this.\n“In our submission, the DA will demonstrate that the term ‘numerical targets’ used by the Act is a misnomer and that, in reality, the Act sets rigid racial quotas for four different job levels across 18 economic sectors,” the party said in a statement on Tuesday (6 June).\nThe DA argues that these new laws will come with crippling penalties, including the inability to do business with the state, the cancellation of existing state contracts, compelling orders, and fines.\n“It will not only directly lead to mass job losses but also accelerate capital and skills flight out of the country at a time when our economy is already in a deep crisis brought about by load shedding and economic ills,” added the DA.\nThe opposition party noted that these laws violate the constitutional rights to equality, freedom of trade, occupation and profession, as well as the original Employment Equity Act’s own prohibition on quotas.\nSolidarity is also working on a legal challenge, with the union noting that the only way the targets could ever be reached is though strict application, which would amount to quotas.\nA report by the Solidarity Research Institute (SRI) noted that there are only two ways that the sectoral targets could be reached – either the economy has to grow so more jobs can be created to absorb the requisite people to hit the targets, or – more likely – the current composition of workers needs to be replaced to represent the targeted spread.\n“The government’s new laws will cause a bloodbath in the labour market. It threatens the country’s economy and the well-being of South African citizens,” said the union.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/694231/businesses-push-back-against-south-africas-strict-new-bee-laws-with-another-legal-challenge-on-the-way/"}

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+{"doc_id": "04bc7f20a219a4c8317090c50c1764ed", "text": "Safaricom’s mobile money business made a profit of Sh50 billion before tax in the year ended March, contributing nearly half of the company’s total gross earnings and solidifying M-Pesa’s position as its most profitable service.\nThe telco in its latest annual report outlined the share of profits attributable to the mobile money business for the first time, having previously just reported the contribution to revenues.\nThe performance statement shows that while M-Pesa business contributed 49 percent of the telco’s profit before tax of Sh102.2 billion, its revenue of Sh107.7 billion accounted for 36 percent of the company’s total revenue of Sh298.07 billion.\nThis indicates that the mobile money unit has superior profitability compared to other business lines such as voice and data.\nIn the previous financial year, the gross profit from mobile money stood at Sh39 billion, accounting for 41.7 percent of the group’s total profit before tax.\nThe growing profitability has been helped by the increased adoption of mobile payments in the past two years, after the transaction limit was increased to Sh150,000 and the mobile money wallet amount raised to Sh300,000 from March 2020.\n“Uptake of mobile money services continued to grow, as with its convenience and cashless nature it was perceived as helping curb the spread of Covid-19,” the telco says in the report.\n“In general, the Kenyan ICT sector has experienced robust growth as a result of the pandemic having pushed consumers to adopt online ways of conducting business and mobile money payments.”\nMobile payments have also gone up among businesses, backed by the higher transaction and wallet size limits and the removal of charges for cash transfers between mobile wallets and bank accounts.\nThe telco has also widened the number of services it offers on the M-Pesa platform beyond personal cash transfers. Merchant and utility payments have gone up, as has the usage of mobile platforms for borrowing loans from banks and also Safaricom’s own overdraft service known as Fuliza.\nThis ability to scale up the number of services riding on the M-Pesa digital platform has allowed Safaricom to grow revenue from the fees on the service without having to match it with high capital expenditure.\nRevenue growth for the mobile money unit, which stood at Sh25 billion in the year to March 2022, has thus outpaced that of cost of sales and operating expenses, which rose by Sh9.7 billion and Sh4.9 billion respectively in the period to Sh52.3 billion and Sh13 billion.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/companies/safaricom-makes-sh50bn-profit-from-m-pesa-unit-3875406"}

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+{"doc_id": "069bb4ca27f4173c608a8d0415dc6f6b", "text": "South Africans using prepaid electricity should expect a significant increase in their monthly bill from April this year.\nLast year, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) approved Eskom price increases of 18.65% for 2023/24 and a 12.74% increase that will start in April 2024.\nThis comes despite Eskom’s continuous failure to provide a reliable electricity supply. Although 2024 is not expected to suffer the same severity in load shedding as 2023, energy experts have warned that load shedding is not going away anytime soon amid the poor performance of the nation’s coal-fired power stations.\nThe price hike is expected to take the average electricity tariff in South Africa from roughly R1.84 per kWh to around R2.07 per kWh. This average reflects the national average – local municipal prices will differ, and urban customers who consume power in higher blocks will pay more than this.\nSince load shedding started in 2008, electricity increases have grown by 450% – far higher than the 98% inflation over the same period. With the upcoming increase, this figure is expected to balloon further.\nHow much South Africans will pay is dependent on what kind of electricity customer they are. Eskom has published its fee adjustments for 2023/24. A fee calculator and a comparison tool are also available. As the upcoming fee changes for 2024/25 are not functional, we have used our own calculations to see how much more South Africans could be spending.\nIn 2023/24, an average Eskom customer using 200 kWh per month in urban Gauteng would have seen their monthly power bill increase by 18.68% from R590 to R700.\nWith the 12.74% increase, these power users can expect to spend R790 for 200 kWh per month from April this year.\nMunicipalities\nAlthough municipalities bill their customers at different rates – and usually do so at a later date (July) – they tend to be based on Eskom’s increases.\nCape Town’s electricity prices increased by 17.6% on 1 July 2023. Should prices rise by Eskom’s upcoming tariff increase, it will be just over R1 more expensive (R790.98).\nJohannesburg’s City Power uses a block system, where Block 1 (0-350kWh) offers the cheapest power, which then slowly climbs in price with further usage. When using block 1, residents in Johannesburg pay over R200 less than their Mother City counterparts.\neThekwini’s 18.49% increase last year was incredibly close to Eskom’s. However, unlike Johannesburg and Cape Town, the KZN metro already has pencilled in an increase for 2024/25 of 10.11%. However, the R789.88 for 200 kWh for eThekwini is in line with Eskom’s upcoming price increase.\nQuestions over the increase\nAmidst heightened load shedding and the cost of living crisis, there have been legal challenges over the increases approved by Nersa.\nIn December last year, the High Court of South Africa rejected the requests for a judicial review of the revenue decision and tariff approval made by Nersa concerning Eskom’s fifth MultiYear Price Determination (MYPD5) application for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 fiscal years.\nThis came after applications from the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the South African Local Government Association (Salga) to review Nersa’s decisions.\nThe High Court said that “when all is considered and the detailed and extensive reasons furnished by Nersa is compared with the attacks on its decisions, none of the review grounds pass muster.”\nHowever, Eskom has failed to meet several of the critical conditions placed on it by Nersa in line with the MYPD5.\nIndependent energy analyst Pieter Jordaan said that due to the high cost of diesel to run Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs), an average utilisation rate – A.K.A load factor – of 1% is seen as the utility-scale standard for this energy supply.\nNevertheless, Nersa related the load factor to 6% due to Eskom’s price determination due to the bleak supply situation.\nAs per the relaxations, Eskom had to reduce its breakdowns (UCLF) from 31% (2022/23 FY) to 20% and improve the Energy Avaialby Factor (EAF) from 57% (2022/23 FY) to 65%.\nThe embattled power utility has failed to meet these targets in 2023/24, with the UCLF at 33% and EAF at 55%, according to the latest data.\nWhat’s worse is that the OGCT load factor stands at 20%.\nHowever, Eskom has failed to meet these conditions for the 2023/24 financial year, with UCLF averages at 33% and EAF at 55%. Meanwhile, the OCGT load factor stands at 20%.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/744295/how-much-prepaid-electricity-will-cost-in-south-africa-after-the-2024-price-hikes/"}

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+{"doc_id": "06b550f9aefd9592d602d0faf1ea22ff", "text": "South Africa’s state capacity is collapsing, and the Growth Lab at Harvard University has provided a host of solutions to tackle some of South Africa’s biggest issues – including the energy crisis.\nAccording to the researchers, South Africa has two major issues undermining inclusive growth in the country – declining state capacity and spatial exclusion.\nLooking at the former, the collapse of South Africa’s has been felt in several industries, including electricity, rail, ports and water, whilst also impacting the functioning of municipal governments.\nSouth Africa has also lost its comparative advantage in generating cheap and reliable electricity through its coal resources, which previously underpinned its competitiveness in energy-intensive industries, such as mineral processing.\nThe lack of reliable energy supply has hurt the nation’s growth, with the South African Reserve Bank estimating that the electricity crisis is reducing growth by two percentage points.\n“But we find that the electricity collapse became binding years before load shedding became as severe as it has been lately, especially for the manufacturing sector,” the researchers said.\nFour key causes of the underlying systematic collapse were identified:\n- Gridlock in the ruling coalition that prevents action;\n- An ideology that justifies excluding society from participating in state-reserved activities,\n- Over-burdening of public entities with goals beyond their core missions and capabilities and\n- Political patronage that has corrupted both the state and the ruling coalition.\nThe report also notes that reversing the collapse of state capabilities requires new actions to address the deeper causes that have made state collapse so pervasive.\n“We find that ending load shedding is not a sufficient goal; rather, South Africa needs to restore its previous comparative advantage in low-cost and reliable electricity,” the researchers said.\n“Until recently, government maintained Draconian restrictions on private electricity provision. Even now, the main way for the private sector to provide electricity is through power purchase agreements with ESKOM or self-generation, rather than through a well-designed market.\n“Generation is being constrained by lack of capacity in transmission and storage, but little is being done to promote investments in these areas. Provinces, metros, and municipalities have been restricted from buying power other than from ESKOM.\nUntil last August, private investment in renewable energy was extremely restricted, with still no viable way for society to invest in transmission or storage.\nAlthough regulatory reform is in the works, the process of establishing a new market has not been treated with the speed that the crisis requires.\nMunicipal issues\nAlthough several state functions have collapsed over the last twenty years, the researchers said that municipal governments were not set up for success.\n“We find that decentralization at the turn of the century loaded numerous responsibilities on municipalities without a path to gaining the needed local capabilities to deliver”\n“This problem of ‘premature load bearing’ was especially pronounced in local expenditure responsibilities and the unusual responsibility of municipalities in the provision of electricity and water distribution and fee collection.”\nThis especially hurt smaller municipalities, with public capacity at the local level also impacted by using preferential procurement systems, which have overburdened local governments.\n“The collapsing electricity system has further damaged already weak local fee collection and has created a chain of debts from households to municipalities to Eskom and the need for national bailouts.\n“One result of this system of decentralization is that places that were left behind from the modern South African economy two decades ago lacked the effective delivery of public inputs and networks that would allow them to connect and participate in the economy.”\nReturning to preferential procurement, the researchers said that the purpose of these rules, as per the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework of 2000, was to enable socio-economic transformation by giving preference to previously disadvantaged groups, SMMES and local production\nThat said, these systems are not only falling short of their goal but also undermining it in crucial ways.\nFor instance, rural infrastructure failures due to procurement constraints mean that the very people and businesses that were meant to benefit are excluded and disempowered.\nThe IMF recently noted that improved procurement practices that were proposed by Treasury in 2015 could amount to 20% of the cost of goods and services procured – roughly 3% of GDP or $12.7 billion.\nSolutions\nRebuilding state capacity is, however, possible as long as government leaders are willing to address the four causes of state collapse.\nDespite South Africa facing several issues with state capacity, the recent turnaround of the South African Revenue Service (SARS), which has recovered the state’s ability to collect taxes, shows that change can be possible\nWith this in mind, the researchers provided a host of recommendations for addressing the energy crisis, municipal governments, and the state’s capacity overall:\nThe Energy Crisis\n- Create a functioning market for electricity with the following principles: (1) Greater participation of society in generation, transmission, distribution, and storage; (2) Efficient distribution markets that are not too small to benefit from economies of scale (as many municipalities currently are); (3) Clear rules for all market participants that eliminate conflicts of interest and prevent discriminatory treatment; and (4) Final prices that reflect the marginal cost of production, including intra-day pricing.\n- Appoint a reform and unbundling sherpa/Czar to push implementation.\n- Remove all preferential procurement requirements for the REIPPP. Develop strategic procurement programs that strengthen industries with clear potential to eventually compete in global markets (and move toward this targeted approach instead of widespread, ineffective preferential procurement).\n- Use REIPPP design for investments in transmission and storage. Include transmission and storage (with geographical considerations) in the next REIPPP procurement window.\n- Rent existing power plants to other operators incorporating high incentives for efficiency.\n- Enable new comparative advantage in green electricity: (1) streamline approval of renewable generation, transmission, and storage projects; (2) promote private green industrial zones powered by renewable energy to attract energy intensive industries that want to decarbonize quickly; (3) explore pumped storage hydropower with Lesotho to facilitate the absorption of more renewable projects\nMunicipal Governments\n- Reassign responsibility for electricity and water distribution to geographically efficient regulated monopolies. Such companies could then collect other fees on behalf of municipalities via their monthly bills.\n- Develop public “capability banks” and position national/regional entities as service providers to municipalities for activities where local governments cannot be expected to have local expertise nationwide.\nThe State’s Capacity Overall\n- Unburden Capacity – Expand relaxation of preferential procurement requirements on all SOEs and other public entities.\n- Build Up and Protect Capacity – Gradual civil service reform to replace the reliance on cadre deployment. Explore the long-term system of civil service cadres that are recruited nationally but deployed across different municipalities and levels of government.\n- Leverage Existing Capacity – Establish clear markets that allow for societal capabilities to help fill supply gaps in network industries.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/731295/ending-load-shedding-isnt-enough/"}

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+{"doc_id": "0929d8c1eb55cde5aecb4b3e66144b15", "text": "Former Eskom consultant Matthew Cruise expects electricity prices to double in South Africa over the next five years as the state power utility continues to struggle to keep the lights on.\nCruise, the former consultant, and current campaign manager for solar provider Hohm Energy, told Relifwe Moloto at CapeTalk that while Eskom has forecast roughly 61 days of load shedding over winter, given how many days in May have already been load shedded, that figure appears optimistic. Already, the 61-day figure equates to load shedding roughly every third day.\nThe consultant predicts that the price of electricity will double over the next five years, as will load shedding. Cruise said that in 2021, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) hiked electricity prices by an average of 17.9%. He said this will take place every year – “you will have a more than inflation-based increase for Eskom…and then the municipalities will also want an increase,” he said. In 2022, the average increase in electricity is 17.1%.\nCruise said that if you have an average increase of 15% over the next five years, “it actually effectively doubles the price of electricity”. “If you are paying R2,000 for electricity now, you may be paying R4,000 in the next five years.”\nLoad shedding and renewables\nCruise told the radio host that there isn’t enough energy capacity coming online to cover that going offline. He said that despite announcements of 2,500 MW of renewable energy coming online, as much as 8,800 MW from traditional power stations is set to come offline. He added that the energy supply from the renewable systems is not 2,500 MW consistently, often operating at only 20% efficiency.\nRenewables such as solar only offer power during the midday peaks, whereas, South Africa’s peak energy usage is in the evening, said Cruise.\nDeep-seated issues\nAnd while Eskom pins its hopes on some offline generating units returning to operation in the coming months to stave off rising power demand, analysts point to deeper, more entrenched problems within government departments that are holding the entire energy sector back.\nCapacity issues at Eskom this week forced the power utility to implement daily load shedding during evening peak hours when demand was highest.\nThe utility said that the national electricity grid remains constrained, with an elevated risk of load shedding over the winter period, particularly during the morning and evening peaks.\nDuring the next few weeks, however, it expects to return to service two units at Kusile Power Station, and Koeberg Unit 2 is expected to return by the end of June 2022. These three large generation units will add approximately 2,500MW to the power system.\nBut South Africa’s energy problems extend beyond the immediate shortfall in supply, say Stuart Theobald and Peter Attard Montalto, analysts at Intellidex.\nIn two separate op-eds penned by the analysts, they outlined the massive problem faced by the country’s energy sector: namely that it does not have enough power to meet demand, while any processes launched to rectify this are subsequently mired in political and economic blockages.\nTheobald pointed to the government’s renewable energy independent power producers’ programme (REIPPP), which has effectively hit a roadblock, as the poster-child for this ongoing problem.\n“The ground-breaking REIPP programme came to life in the Zuma era, but has floundered under Ramaphosa. Having been the one bright light in the energy sector, it is dimming, despite the electricity crisis being as severe as before,” he said.\nThe obvious symptom of the dysfunction, Theobald said, is that not one project in the REIPPP has reached financial close since the fourth bid window that was conducted in 2015, with the financial close for many projects delayed by coal interests to 2018.\n“All projects procured since — especially the urgent ‘risk mitigation bidding round’ that included Karpowership’s floating gas generators, and the fifth bid window — have so far failed to reach financial close, the point at which all contracts are signed and construction can begin,” he said.\nThis glaring hole in new energy procurement was echoed by Attard Montalto, who noted that there is a serious procurement and market failure occurring “that is not sinking in” with those in government.\nThe analyst warned that load-shedding risks being extended long into the future as a result.\nTheobalt and Attard Montalto pointed to the government as being the key stumbling block, where the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy is not aligned with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and National Treasury on procurement goals.\nFive projects are not hitting a financial close because they cannot meet localisation targets set by the DTI – largely because South Africa does not have the necessary skills or capacity to meet them.\n“Under minister Ebrahim Patel, the localisation agenda has been pushed far more aggressively, but without the insight required to understand what is possible,” Theobald said. “This is the main reason for the delay in closing projects for the fifth bid window — the various successful bidders cannot all simultaneously procure enough to meet the localisation targets.”\n“During the delays, commodity prices have soared making many projects unprofitable, so they won’t be able to get funding. It is a mess. And now the sixth bid window is open with bids expected to be submitted in August,” he said.\nAccording to Attard Montalto, this stalemate has locked South Africa into its current energy crisis, with no real plan or political will to get the country out of the rut.\n“We are chasing our tail…locking in future procurement to the same mistakes,” he said.\n“The lack of movement by Eskom on smaller procurement opportunities – due to a lack of action by the department of mineral resources & energy and the Treasury – or the inability for any player to push forward with fast, radically different procurement methods like feed-in tariffs, all means we are locked into the current situation,” he said.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/585848/expect-electricity-prices-to-double-in-the-next-five-years-says-former-eskom-consultant/"}

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+{"doc_id": "09a8961337ae08290b4ace476ba954ce", "text": "Power utility Eskom has given its latest load shedding update, laying out the expected schedule through to Wednesday (2 November).\nStage 2 load shedding will be implemented from 05h00 on Monday until 05h00 on Tuesday. Stage 2 load shedding will then be implemented during the evening peaks from 16h00 until midnight on both Tuesday and Wednesday.\nMonday, 31 October\n- Stage 2 – 05h00 to 00h00\nTuesday, 1 November\n- Stage 2 – 00h00 to 05h00\n- Stage 2 – 16h00 to 00h00\nWednesday, 2 November\n- Stage 2 – 16h00 to 00h00\nEskom will publish a further update on Wednesday afternoon, or as soon as there are any significant changes.\nSince yesterday afternoon, a unit each at Tutuka and Matimba power stations were taken offline for repairs. A unit each at Kendal, Kusile, Matla and Tutuka power stations were returned to service.\nThe group currently has 4,886MW on planned maintenance, while another 13,792MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.\nEskom Update: what Treasury wants from Eskom and South Africa secures funding for renewables\nAlthough the full quantum of the debt takeover by the National Treasury is not yet known, Godongwana said it would be between one- to two-thirds of total debt, giving a range of R130 billion to R260 billion.\nTreasury head of asset and liability management Duncan Pieterse says that Eskom would be required to sell off its noncore assets and make operational improvements if the government assumes part of its R400 billion debt. However, Pieterse added that the Treasury had not yet finalised the conditions to be attached to the Eskom debt takeover.\nAmid these debt takeover formalities, South Africa has secured $500 million (R9 billion) to aid its just transition from coal to renewables. The Climate Investment Funds – a multilateral climate fund affiliated with the World Bank – had approved the funding.\nAccording to a statement from the CIF, “The decision intends to equip the country with concessional, risk-bearing capital from CIF’s Accelerating Coal Transition (CIF ACT) investment programme to build momentum toward ambitious climate, energy, and development goals”.\nForestry, Fisheries and Environment Minister Barbara Creecy welcomed the CIF’s decision, adding that estimates indicate South Africa needs over R1 trillion in investments to support its energy transition over the next eight years.\n“The CIF ACT finance will make a meaningful contribution towards South Africa walking down the ambitious pathway to a brighter future for our people, addressing our energy needs, promoting sustainable development, and leaving no one behind,” said Creecy.\nSchedules\nFor people living in the major metros, load shedding schedules are available here:\n- City of Johannesburg\n- City of Ekurhuleni\n- City of Tshwane\n- City of Cape Town (PDF)\n- Nelson Mandela Bay\n- eThekwini\n- Manguang\n- Buffalo City\nFor access to other load shedding schedules, Eskom has made them available on loadshedding.eskom.co.za.\nSmartphone users can also download the app EskomSePush to receive push notifications when load shedding is implemented, as well as the times the area you are in will be off.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/638983/eskom-announces-stage-2-load-shedding-for-this-week-here-is-the-new-schedule/"}

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+{"doc_id": "0a0781ac3f358f703cbeb4dab6d2ab7c", "text": "The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has warned that around 10,000 mining jobs may be lost over the next two months.\n“[NUM] expresses its shock considering the levels of unemployment in South Africa. This is a huge blow. Our members and workers at large who are about to [lose] their jobs have nothing to celebrate this festive season,” the union said.\nThis comes as numerous companies in the South African platinum group metal (PGM) sector mull cutting a large number of their workforce amid massive drops in metal prices and numerous disruptions to operations.\nPrecious metal companies like Anglo American Platinum, Wesizwe Platinum, Impala Platinum, and Sibanye Stillwater have all said that they are looking at restructuring their business operations in response to (among other factors) the sharp metal price decline as profits seem to bleed. This year alone, the price of major PMGs like platinum and palladium dropped around 11% and 40%, respectively.\nAnglo-American Platinum made headlines over the weekend when it announced that it is considering cutting the workforce at two South African units. No further details were given on the extent of the cuts, as further consultation is said to be needed.\nWesizwe Platinum (which is 45% owned by Chinese group Junchuan Group International Resources) has begun consultations where it is looking to possibly cut 571 out of the 761 jobs (75%) at the Bakubung platinum project mine in the North West province.\n“There simply do not appear to be any alternatives available,” the company said.\nIf the group cannot continue to operate without job cuts, Wesizwe said it “would not be reasonable or viable”.\nThe group said it “(needs) to implement measures to improve efficiencies and to ensure that Bakubung is placed on the path of profitability and growth”. This follows various prolonged strikes at these mines by workers in 2022 and 2023.\nThe shock announcement resulted in their share price on the JSE falling by more than 13%.\nSibanye-Stillwater announced in October that it would be restructuring its PGM operations, affecting 4,095 full-time employees and contractors at the Kroondal (Simunye shaft), Marikana (Rowland and 4 Belt shafts) and Rustenburg (Siphumelele) mining shafts.\nThe company pinpointed this restructuring to electricity and water cost increases and the drop in PGM prices.\nOn Tuesday, ArcelorMittal confirmed that it was considering around 3,500 job cuts at its Vereeniging and Newcastle plants.\nEarlier this month, Impala Platinum said that it is offering “voluntary job cuts to workers” at its Rustenburg mining complex in the North West province.\nSpeaking to Reuters, the group’s spokesperson Johan Theron declined to say how many jobs the company expects to cut.\nHowever, Theron said that “we are obviously doing everything to reduce costs.”\n“Labour is a big cost component, so you always start with labour by offering voluntary separation packages.”", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/734195/warning-over-jobs-bloodbath-in-one-of-south-africas-biggest-sectors/"}

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+{"doc_id": "0ab44b2165ada30d4300af07faee0402", "text": "Naivas Supermarket has opened a new branch in Syokimau as it continues with its national expansion.\nThe outlet, called Naivas-Katani, opens its doors on Friday targeting thousands of shoppers in the region that has attracted a significant number of middle-class residents.\nThis is the retailer’s third store along Mombasa road and the 82nd branch countrywide.\nThe new branch comes at a time Naivas is racing to defend its market leadership against its closest rival QuickMart which has also been expanding in recent months.\n“The new outlet is a food market covering 34,299 square feet is the 3rd of its format along Mombasa road, with the other two being Naivas Foodmarket Capital center and the just-opened Naivas Foodmarket Imara,” Naivas Chief commercial officer Willy Kimani said in a statement on Thursday.\n“The store focuses on everyday fresh produce that guarantees value for money and it is also stocked with a wide variety of products to choose from.”\nNaivas opened its 81st store at Imaara Shopping Mall in Embakasi constituency in February.\nIt has over the past few months been on an aggressive expansion spree, taking up prime space vacated by rivals and also new strategic locations.\nIt gained financial muscle to fund the growth after raising Sh6 billion from institutional investors including Amethis Finance which took a 30 percent stake in the firm.\nBesides the Imaara Mall branch, Naivas also took over Greenspan Mall in Donholm Nairobi last month.\nTuskys Supermarket was the anchor tenant at the mall until it was kicked out by the landlord after it was unable to honour its tenancy agreement as its financial health deteriorated.\nQuickMart and Naivas have been spending heavily on expansion to fill the void left by collapsed and financially troubled rivals.\nTuskys, for instance, has been rapidly shutting stores on the back of heavy debt and insufficient working capital.\nEquity Bank #ticker:EQTY recently put up Tuskys’ five-storey commercial building in Nairobi, which also houses its store, up for auction over a Sh650 million debt.\nThe collapse of former retail giant Nakumatt Holdings also left scores of prime locations that Naivas and Carrefour have taken over.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/companies/naivas-supermarket-opens-new-branch-in-syokimau-3751900"}

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+{"doc_id": "0b839502cce07689341a7e5ad2f2d980", "text": "New data shows that cash-trapped South Africans will be conscious of what they spend their money on, with many saying they intend to cut back on non-essential spending as they battle to pay bills and service credit – which will impact the retail sector over the upcoming festive season.\nThis was flagged by TransUnion’s Q4 Consumer Pulse Study, which highlighted the financial standings of South African consumers and how they intend to utilise their disposable income over the next three months.\nAccording to TransUnion, only 59% of households expect to be able to meet their current bills and loan obligations.\nA larger proportion of Gen Z (born 1995-2004) and Millennial (born 1981-1996) respondents indicated that they were struggling the most and would not be able to meet their credit commitments in the coming quarter – 34% and 42%, respectively.\nAs a result, the credit reporting agency added that 34% of respondents will dip into their savings to service their debt in the short term, while 31% plan to make at least partial payments within their means.\nThe report also noted that strained consumers would adapt their budget strategies over the next quarter.\nNearly half (47%) of consumers said they would cut down on dining out, travel and entertainment and spend less on retail shopping and big purchases in the next three months.\nThis cut in spending is mainly targeted towards clothing and electronics, while other cuts include cancelling memberships – such as the gym – and cancelling digital services and subscriptions.\nTransUnion further noted that South Africa’s retail trade rose by 0.9% from a year earlier in September 2023, following a downwardly revised 0.3% decrease in the prior month and better than market forecasts of a 0.1% increase.\n“Retailers are hoping for a further recovery in spending during the festive season, but with the cost of goods having risen by 5.4%, consumers are mindful of affordability,” it said.\nThe strain on consumers and retail spending was also highlighted after Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2023, with data showing a decline in sales.\n“The rand value on average over the extended Black Friday period was – in real terms that strips out inflation – behind the past few years. This shows the pressure consumers are under,” said Product Manager at Ecentric Payment Systems.\n“Companies that use Ecentric’s payment dashboard to monitor sales, which includes South Africa’s largest retailers, processed more than R1.1 billion in deals.\n“However, there was a 5.06% decline in transaction volume, and, in real terms, value dropped 12%,” the company added.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/736025/bad-news-for-shopping-malls-in-south-africa/"}

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+{"doc_id": "0ddfb152e320f0753a95257ad0a58171", "text": "Cisco Systems Inc spooked investors with a warning that Chinese lockdowns and other supply disruptions would wipe out sales growth in the current quarter, renewing broader concerns about tech spending in a shaky economy.\nThe outlook sent Cisco shares down as much as 19% in late trading and weighed on stocks of other networking companies, dealing a fresh blow to an already-battered sector. Even before Cisco’s latest plunge, its stock was down 24% this year.\nThe question for much of Wall Street was whether Cisco’s forecast meant that customers were cutting spending, but the networking-equipment giant said supply woes — and not a pullback in expenditures – was the main problem.\n“Even though these top-line numbers don’t look good, there’s a very simple explanation,” chief executive officer Chuck Robbins said on a conference call with analysts. “Customers are not signaling any real shift at this point. There’s no reflection of demand issues in our guidance.”\nRobbins acknowledged that Cisco wasn’t prepared for production to be closed down so extensively in China, a move triggered by the country’s Covid Zero policy.\n“We did not have a plan for a country to shut down,” he said. “And so it takes time to go out and create that geographic resilience, but our teams are working on all of those kinds of things right now.”\nChina’s lockdowns have hurt production from many companies, including Tesla Inc. and Sony Group Corp. Robbins said it’s not yet clear when supplies will return to normal, despite signs that government restrictions are easing in certain areas.\n“Shanghai now is saying they’re going to open up June 1 — we don’t know exactly what that means,” he said. When the reopening happens, “there is going to be lots of competition for ports capacity, airport capacity.”\nCisco is the biggest maker of machines that power corporate networks and form the backbone of the internet. Investors look at its outlook as a proxy for corporate spending on infrastructure, which is why the sudden shift was especially jarring.\nThe company had predicted growth in the current quarter of about 6%. It said Wednesday that sales would actually decline by 1% to 5.5% in the period, which ends in July. Cisco’s earnings forecast also was short of Wall Street predictions.\nCisco shares tumbled as low as $39 in late trading. That followed a 4.4% decline in regular trading Wednesday, bringing the stock to $48.36.\nOther networking related-companies saw their stocks fall after-hours following Cisco’s report. Juniper Networks Inc. was down as much as 9.6%, Broadcom Corp. fell as much as 4.3%, and Ciena Corp. dropped as much as 12%.\nBroader chip shortages and the war in Ukraine also have created disruptions for Cisco and its peers.\nLike many tech companies, Cisco began cutting ties with Russia after that country invaded Ukraine earlier this year. The company said Wednesday that stopping business in Russia and its ally Belarus cost it about $200 million in revenue during the fiscal third quarter. Historically the region, including Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine, has accounted for about 1% of total sales.\nOn the conference call with Cisco executives, analysts questioned whether the weak guidance indicated that customers are concerned about their own future prospects and have begun to cut their spending.\nRobbins insisted that demand remains robust. That said, the company doesn’t expect supply shortages to be resolved in the current quarter.\nThe inability to get power supplies from China cost Cisco $300 million in revenue in the third quarter, executives said. And even when the lockdowns end in China, the problem won’t be solved right away.\nThe tone of the report was a stark contrast from three months ago, when Cisco said orders rose more than 30% for a third consecutive quarter. Since then, investors have become more concerned that inflation and fears of slowing economic growth will make customers more cautious. This past quarter, the company said it orders increased 8%.\nWhile that’s a much slower rate of expansion, it shows strong growth ahead for a company of Cisco’s size, according to David Heger, an analyst at Edward D. Jones & Co.\n“I would be more concerned if that order number was flat or down,” Heger said.\nCisco has implemented a no-cancellation policy on its orders within 45 days of the shipping date, according to chief financial officer Scott Herren. Smaller customers, who tend to be the quickest to tighten their spending budgets, increased orders 19%. The growth and the overall low rate of cancellations give the company confidence that there are no underlying demand issues, Herren said in an interview.\nUnder Robbins, Cisco has been trying to spur growth with updated hardware, as well as new services and software. The hope is to make the longtime king of networking gear less dependent on one-time equipment sales.\nThe latest outlook marks a setback in that push. Excluding certain items, earnings will be 76 cents to 84 cents a share in the period, Cisco said. That compares with an average estimate of 92 cents.\nFor the year, revenue will grow 2% to 3%, the company said, compared with a previous prediction of as much as 6.5%.\nRevenue in the three months ended in April, was $12.8 billion, little changed from a year ago. Earnings per share, minus certain items, was 87 cents. Analysts had projected a profit of 86 cents on sales of $13.3 billion on average.\nBut without signs that orders truly are slowing, Wall Street may be overreacting to Cisco’s numbers, Heger said.\n“Short of some big drop-off in demand, it seems as though the market is overcompensating,” he said.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/cloud-hosting/587836/cisco-spooks-investors-with-supply-warning/"}

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+{"doc_id": "0eb77c1a3ccfc29b0450889f26c1d8b5", "text": "The Kenyan digital content creation space has exploded in the last few years with creators earning hundreds of thousands of shillings from platforms such as YouTube and Instagram.\nLocal firms have also been falling over themselves in the race to ink lucrative influencer deals. For the talented, it has felt like riding the gravy train, with some living flashy lifestyles.\nThey've caught the attention of the government and it now wants a bigger chunk of its share through proposed multiple amendments to the Finance Bill 2023, one of them; being the taxation of payments made to digital creators.\nIf approved by the lawmakers, the income earned through digital content monetisation will be subject to a 15 percent withholding tax, which is significantly higher than the 5 percent rate for professional services.\nMohammed Assad Alby, one of the well-known content creators says the tax proposal is \"extremely unfair\" to young people who are trying to make ends meet in an environment where quality jobs are hard to come by.\n“We have to come up with ways of creatively earning income for ourselves in ways that the older generation would never have thought of only to be slapped with tax. From all the tax changes ours is the craziest,” says the 24-year-old.\nAloof government\nMr Assad whose social media name is M.Alby says there is more to content creation beyond what is seen on social media and the government doesn't appear to appreciate this.\n“One thing people don’t know is that before we get to a point where we can earn money from content, we spend so much from our own pockets with a slim chance of making it in the competitive industry. Cameras laptops, editing software, microphones, lighting, all this equipment is expensive in Kenya,” says M.Alby.\nM.Alby who has amassed a following of over 634,000 on TikTok, over 159,000 on Instagram, and 32,000 YouTube subscribers says the tax will discourage job creation.\n“Digital content has empowered me to launch a company and employ youth. We’re a young generation of dreamers that are not sleeping because we are chasing after our dreams,” he says of his M. Alby Production Limited.\nThe take is not different from Kevin Maina’s, a 23-year-old young content generator who is all over social media, creating different digital pieces.\n“It isn’t worth it when facilitation for creators to grow financially is not upheld. Most creators are a forgotten lot and the taxes only create a strain,” says Mr Maina.\nBesides his comic pieces, Mr Maina is a poetic stage performer, an actor, and a podcast editor.\nBoasting over 367,000 followers on TikTok, and more than 71,000 on Instagram, Mr Maina is known for his piece Mainamind and a Showmax series Single Kiasi where he featured as a cast.\nUncertain future\nWith the recent government moves, he is concerned about the future of the creative industry.\n“It is likely to affect the quality of work. Because higher taxes on the same income only strain your capacity to invest more in the craft,” he notes.\nM. Alby blames the content creator's predicament on ‘wannabe’ creators who paint the picture of glamorous lifestyles on social media, giving the government a false impression about the earnings of a content creator.\nCurrently, there is no official data on what content creators take home.\n“I feel like this huge tax increase is because of the fake lifestyles so many people put out on social media. I just saw a recent report that in Kenya only about 1.9 million people out of our over 50 million population have over Sh100,000 in their bank accounts. If the government has such data, then surely they can tell how many influencers and social media personalities have over Sh100,000,” decries M. Alby.\nSurprisingly, when the Business Daily contacted a number of content creators, they said they were unaware of their sector, let alone the implications of the Financial Bill.\nPush for a lobby\nTo change this. M.Alby says, “We need to come together as content creators and form a body where we can express our complaints because we will be hit so hard and the same generation that used to laugh at online content and term it as 'wasting time' and not a 'real job' is now hunting for our little gains as we grow.”\nThe bill defines content creators as any individual that is offering \"entertainment, social, literal, artistic, educational or any other material electronically,\" through websites, and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, in partnership with brands or retailers.\nNancy Wotune, a senior advisor, at Ichiban Tax and Business Advisory LLP, offers insights on the topic that is proving to raise mixed reactions from the general public.\n“It is useful to understand that the proposed tax is an advance tax on the income of digital content creators. Ordinarily, these content creators are required to pay tax on their income. The proposal allows Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) to collect 15 percent in advance. KRA expects that the digital content creators will also pay the balance of the tax in April of the following year,” said Mrs Wotune.\nWill the changes affect the creative industry?\n“I think the creative industry will continue growing given the rapid pace of replacement of traditional commerce by digital commerce. However, KRA will likely collect more from these taxpayers who were hitherto not on KRA's radar.\nIt is useful to note that the 15 percent rate is much higher than the ordinary 5 percent imposed on other professional services. This could lead to perpetual income tax refunds after the digital content creators deduct their expenses in arriving at the taxable income,” she noted.\nHow are the earnings going to be traced through all their digital platforms?\n“The obligation to withhold is on the person paying the digital content creator. Therefore, KRA will collect data on the persons paid and expect to collect. Don't forget that in the Finance Bill, 2023, KRA is seeking to collect data on transactions.\nTherefore, persons paying these digital content creators will need to disclose this data to KRA. There is also the proposal that an expense must be supported by an invoice issued through an electronic tax invoice system, meaning KRA will be able to trace these transactions,” adds Mrs Wotune.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/technology/digital-service-tax-content-creators-cry-foul-over-a-deep-15pc-cut-plan-4242094"}

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+{"doc_id": "114c1173373254de3af88b87a33a3cf4", "text": "South African online retailer Takealot has managed to narrow its trading losses by a massive 85% – but the group is still not yet profitable.\nThis is also reflected in the group’s owner, listed tech and investment group Naspers’ wider results, where it reported a jump in profit for the six months ended 30 September 2023 (1H24), but operating losses have extended, and its e-commerce segment is not yet in the black.\nNaspers recorded a 9% increase in revenue to $3 billion for the period – however, operating costs ate away at all of this, leaving the group with an operating loss of $426 million (extended from an operating loss of $111 million in the prior year).\nThe group’s results reflect figures on a “consolidated basis” from continuing operations, which reflects all majority-owned and managed businesses in its portfolio.\nOperating losses rose US$315 million to US$426 million over the period, primarily due to an impairment loss recognised on Edtech investments, it said.\nThanks to its share of equity-accounted results and gains made on partial disposals of equity-accounted investments – related to its partial disposal of Tencent – the group managed to claw back to an overall profit for the period.\nThe group continues to struggle with its e-commerce segment, which is still posting a trading loss. Naspers said it hopes this segment will turn to profit by the second half of the financial year.\nE-commerce consolidated revenue from continuing operations increased by 10% or US$272 million from US$2.7 billion in the prior period to US$2.9 billion.\n“This was primarily due to revenue growth in Classifieds, Food Delivery, and Payments and Fintech,” it said.\nOn an economic-interest basis, e-commerce revenue grew 15% to US$5.3 billion and trading losses improved from US$820 million to US$249 million.\nTakealot\nLooking at a more South African context, Takealot continued to post a loss, though it has been reduced significantly from the prior period.\nTakelot’s losses amounted to $2 million for the period (~R at current rates), reduced by 85% from $13 million (~R at current rates) before.\nTakealot’s gross merchandise volume (GMV) was up to $711 million from $700 million before.\nThis was up 15% in local currency, Naspers said, but in dollar terms, down by 2%, with the online retailer taking a $91 million hit from the impact of foreign exchange rate changes in the conversion.\n“Rising interest rates and inflation depressed consumer demand while load shedding created strain,” Naspers said.\n“Despite this, Takealot group has managed to reduce its trading losses by a significant 85% when measured in US dollar, excluding any impacts from M&A.”\nTakealot.com continues to grow its marketplace seller base, which reached approximately 10,600 sellers in September 2023\nPart of the Takealot “retail” business, Mr D grew revenue by 11% and GMV by 15% in local currency, excluding M&A. Mr D’s partnership with Pick n Pay, a leading local grocery retailer, continues to scale, Naspers said.\nMamongae Mahlare, Takealot Group CEO said that, while the Takealot Group is not yet profitable at a trading profit level, strong momentum towards profitability has been made through takealot.com’s business operations, which are generating more revenue than they cost to run.\n“This is a clear indication that the business health is solid, with profitability at an operating level. The other two businesses – Mr D and Superbalist.com – are on track to do the same at the appropriate point in their development cycle,” she said.\nRead: Takealot stranglehold spells bad news for South Africa", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/734561/big-leap-for-takealot-but-still-no-profit/"}

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+{"doc_id": "12563bd93851cb8e71048e3d52fbbc91", "text": "There are a number of local factors which will likely impact South Africa’s growth in 2019.\nHowever, Eskom has emerged as the single biggest risk facing the country in 2019, amid growing concerns of more load shedding and rising debts.\nSpeaking to the Sunday Times, Annabel Bishop, chief economist at Investec, said that there were a number of reasons why analysts are growing increasingly cautious of the state-owned enterprise.\n“SOEs remain a key concern, especially Eskom,” she said.\n“Given the parlous state of Eskom’s financial position, load shedding could persist into 2019 and if it was as extreme as in early 2008, GDP for Q1 2019 could see growth cut by as much as a third to a half.”\nAccording to Bishop, some of the risks currently facing Eskom include:\n- Debt of more than R100 billion;\n- Almost 1,000 corruption cases against employees at all levels in the company;\n- Supply constraints for coal needed to generate electricity that led to a bout of load shedding towards the end of 2018;\n- Constant changes in management.\n‘Load shedding on leave’\nIn December Eskom announced that the risk of load shedding would be low through to 13 January 2019 as businesses and industries closed shop for the holiday period.\nAs part of its bid to keep the lights on over the holidays, public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan said that leave for managers was cancelled, and it would be all hands on deck over the period.\n“When we come back to work in mid-January up until the end of March we ideally want to tell the public that there will be no level 2 load shedding,” Gordhan said.\nInstead, Gordhan said that Eskom may introduce a greatly reduced ‘quarter level’ load shedding during this period.\nHe also pledged that Eskom would be better at communicating load shedding schedules and which areas will be impacted.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/292312/the-big-load-shedding-risk-facing-south-africa-in-2019-report/"}

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+{"doc_id": "1256ac1f78c40ac522517c190eb856c3", "text": "The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is set to invest $3 million (Sh300 million) in Kenya’s mobile-based food delivery firm Twiga Foods as part of the company’s efforts to raise more than Sh700 million from multiple investors.\nTwiga runs a mobile cashless platform through which vendors can order and pay for fresh food and vegetables from farmers, resulting in lower prices and more efficient supply chains by from elimination of multiple layers of middlemen. The stakes that IFC and its partners will take in Twiga Foods was not disclosed.\n“IFC, acting for its own account … is considering to invest a minimum of US$ 3 million (Sh300 million) alongside other investors, including TLCom who will invest up to US$ 4 million (Sh400 million) in the company,” the global financier said in an investment disclosure statement.\nTLCom is a venture capital firm with €200 million (Sh23.5 billion) in assets under management and has offices in Nairobi, Lagos and London.\nTwiga shareholders are Peter Njonjo, Grant Brooke, DOB Equity, Omidyar Network, Wamda Capital, 1776 Seed Investors, Alpha Mundi and Blue Haven Initiative.\nThe company, which launched operations in 2014, plans to use the funds to scale up its operations and introduce new offerings such as credit services. Twiga started off matching vendors with banana farmers and has grown to other produce such as mangoes, potatoes, onions, tomatoes and cabbages.\n“The project will enhance integration of different stakeholders in the agricultural value chain working towards increasing farmer productivity,” IFC said.\n“In addition, the project could increase access to new services (for example credit) by reducing informality and demonstrating that farmers can be reached in a commercially sustainable way through technology.”\nTwiga says it has sold more than 200 million bananas and works with some 2,600 vendors. Farmers are attracted to the platform which offers transparency in prices and helps increase their sales.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/companies/twiga-foods-secures-sh300-million-ifc-funding-2208952"}

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+{"doc_id": "126c727cb37442c82e9c376c9af05126", "text": "Media services company Redhouse has acquired the advertising subsidiary of joint venture partner Media Edge Group in a multi-million shilling deal.\nThe move gives it more muscle to compete with market leader Scangroup.\nRedhouse already has majority shareholding of Media Edge Group, and the transaction which involves a cash and share swap gives it full ownership of Media Edge Interactive.\nThe buyout will see Esther Ngomeli, the founder and current managing director of Media Edge Interactive, pocket a significant amount of money and also acquire “significant equity” in Redhouse Group.\n“The deal involved cash and shares swop that enabled shareholders of Media Edge Interactive to be equity participants in Redhouse Group,” said Koome Mwambia, the chief executive for Redhouse.\n“Mrs Ngomeli, the founder of Media Edge, will effectively hold significant equity in the holding company Redhouse Group Limited.”\nRedhouse had applied to the competition watchdog for approval to acquire the “entire issued share capital” of the subsidiary.\nThe two firms had combined turnover of Sh371 million at the time of acquisition, which Mr Koome hinted has grown significantly since the application was lodged at the Competition Authority of Kenya.\nStart-up media services firm Redhouse Group entered the Kenyan market in August 2012 setting up its own public relations, advertising, and media buying unit.\nTo fast-track its foray into the market, Redhouse tapped experienced executives from its rival Ogilvy East Africa where Mr Mwambia was chief executive. It also hired former Ogilvy Kenya PR managing director Okoth Obado for a similar role at Redhouse PR.\nREAD: Redhouse takes on Scangroup in TBWA deal\nArmed with a capital base of Sh430 million, Redhouse Group acquired, through a joint venture, a majority stake in Media Edge Group which runs similar businesses.\nMedia Edge Group subsidiaries include Media Edge Public Relations, Outdoor Care Kenya and Media Edge Interactive, which has now been fully bought out by Redhouse.\nRedhouse chairman is Anthony Wahome whose business interests include crest International Schools, Linksoft Group of Companies and Rose of Sharon Academy. The Group plans to buy out the remaining Media Edge subsidiaries.\n“The approach is informed by the long-term plan by Redhouse Group to build independent but wholly owned specialist marketing companies,” said Mr Mwambia.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/companies/redhouse-buys-advertising-unit-in-multi-million-deal--2053954"}

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+{"doc_id": "12d7d5b504bba5e8a59b238471889c58", "text": "Business groups in South Africa are pushing president Cyril Ramaphosa to delay signing the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill into law, saying that it does not pass constitutional muster and will likely lead to many legal and social troubles down the line.\nIn an open statement to Ramaphosa, Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) and Businesses for South Africa (B4SA) petitioned the president to first test the constitutionality of the NHI Bill before signing it into law.\nThe controversial NHI Bill was passed by the National Council of Provinces in late 2023 and sent on to President Cyril Ramaphosa to be signed into law. The office of the presidency said in December that Ramaphosa wouldn’t just rubber-stamp the bill into law and would apply his mind – however, during election campaigning, the president vowed to sign the bill into law whether critics wanted it or not.\nBUSA and B4SA warned the president that doing so would spell disaster for not only the goal of universal healthcare in South Africa but also the country’s economy as a whole.\n“The Bill, as it stands today, will materially delay access to universal health coverage, lead to disinvestment in the healthcare sector, further damage South Africa’s already fragile economy, and create significant risks for the country in terms of the availability, quality, management and governance of healthcare,” the groups said.\nMartin Kingston, chair of the B4SA steering committee, said that it is clear that the NHI is a cornerstone of the ANC’s election campaigning but stressed that the obvious weaknesses in the bill would have “material negative implications” and “devastating consequences for the country and its people for generations to come”.\n“There is a significant obligation on the President to ensure the Bill passes constitutional muster,” he said.\nBusiness Leadership South Africa (BLSA) CEO, Busi Mavuso said that the NHI was being used as a political tool, choosing populism over practicality – and that the president signing it into law in its current format would simply be the start of all the litigation to block it.\n“The president seems to feel that putting an unworkable law on the books would be an achievement – it will not be,” she said.\n“A genuine and deep improvement in the health system would be – but the NHI Bill will do the opposite, by driving doctors and other medical staff out of the country and damaging the private healthcare sector without any improvement in the public system. Yet the president seems determined to drive it through.”\nThe constitutionality problem\nBUSA and B4SA provided a summary of key procedural and substantive constitutional issues in the bill, which have been presented to the president:\nProcedural issues\nProcedurally, BUSA noted that Parliament’s socio-economic impact assessment process was inadequate, that the Nedlac process in respect of the Bill was not followed through, that public participation inputs were not properly considered, and that multiple constructive inputs from business and other stakeholders were ignored.\n“Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Health also ignored an opinion by Parliamentary Legal Services, which highlighted several areas of the Bill that are unconstitutional,” the groups said.\nRush job\nBUSA highlighted the fact that the process conducted by the NCOP Select Committee on Health and Social Services was rushed, inadequate in terms of its mandate, and that it failed to properly deal with reports submitted by the provinces.\n“Importantly, the NCOP Committee failed to incorporate amendments, provincial public submissions and technical flaws noted by several provinces and even the Department of Health itself,” the groups said.\nOverreach galore\nBUSA noted that section 33 is unconstitutional in giving the Health Minister unfettered power to determine the restricted role for medical schemes, especially as this power is unnecessary for achieving the policy objectives of the Bill.\n“This is damaging to the private health sector as a whole and there is no rational basis for this approach,” the groups said.\nThe Bill provides for the adding of new taxes and altering tax policies, tasks that should be handled by the National Treasury in a Money Bill as per the Constitution.\nThe Bill also breaches the separation of powers by giving the Minister of Health judicial discretion.\nBottlenecking healthcare\nBUSA noted that the single-fund model (where the Government will buy and pay for all healthcare services for everyone) introduces significant concentration risk and adversely impacts people’s ability to seek care in the private sector.\n“This is also likely to result in significant strain being placed on the public sector. The amendments proposed by BUSA seek to allow for the role of medical schemes to be determined in a consultative process, in measured phases, in a manner that is consistent with the policy objectives.”\nLosing access\nBUSA highlighted that the procedures for accessing healthcare and appealing treatment denied by the NHI, could potentially hinder or violate the right to access health services, making them unconstitutional.\nPricing issues\nBUSA believes that the contracting provisions in Sections 11 and 26 of the Bill are unsustainable and inconsistent with the principles of value-based care and strategic purchasing, which is the global trend for sustainable healthcare contracting that is patient-centred.\nThey focus on price in an unsophisticated manner, which contradicts the Constitution’s criteria for lawful procurement.\nVague timelines\nThe roll-out envisaged in Section 57 of the Bill needs to be linked to milestones that are workable and relevant to South Africans having reasonable access to quality healthcare services, rather than dates which are arbitrary and unrealistic, and already outdated.\nSection 58 of the Bill introduces legislative changes that seem to take immediate effect. However, this conflicts with Sections 31 and 32 of the Bill, leading to the immediate removal of health functions from the Provinces.\nThis affects approximately R196 billion in funding from Provincial Equitable Share allocations and Conditional Grants. Additionally, the alterations to the Medical Schemes Act contradict Section 33.\nThere are conflicts with the Competition Act and the Protection of Personal Information Act which are unnecessary to give effect to universal health care.\nBUSA and B4SA said that all of these constitutional and other issues with the bill were raised during the various engagements with government and parliamentary committees, but still the bill passed by unchanged.\nThey are now again being raised in the petition to the president.\n“This is to ensure that, as part of due process, proper consideration is given to the fundamental procedural, and substantive constitutional flaws in the current version of the Bill,” the groups said.\n“BUSA and B4SA are confident that, in a constitutional democracy, these views will be taken into account by the President when he assesses the constitutionality of the Bill prior to his assent.”", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/748486/businesses-in-south-africa-send-a-warning-to-ramaphosa/"}

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+{"doc_id": "13dc9e6b39bf73779f645dc8ac765ece", "text": "President Cyril Ramaphosa says that finance minister Enoch Godongwana will soon announce measures by the National Treasury to boost the rollout of solar in South Africa, including tax breaks.\nDelivering his State of the Nation Address on Thursday (9 February), the president said that “unleashing” own generation among private households and businesses is a key part of the country’s wider plans to end the load shedding crisis.\nThis was point four in the broad five-point plan to end the crisis:\n- Fix Eskom and improve the availability of the existing electricity supply\n- Enable and accelerate private investment in generation capacity\n- Accelerate procurement of new capacity from renewables, gas and battery storage\n- Unleash businesses and households to invest in rooftop solar\n- Fundamentally transform the electricity sector.\nWhile the national government is not deviating from this plan, swifter action is being taken to fast-track certain actions.\nHe said that during the 2023 Budget scheduled for 22 February, the minister of finance will announce how households and businesses will benefit from a tax incentive relating to rooftop solar.\nBeyond the tax breaks, National Treasury will also look at other measures to boost solar availability for businesses.\nRamaphosa said that Treasury will make adjustments to the “bounceback” loan scheme, which was severely underutilised following the Covid-19 pandemic, to help small businesses invest in solar equipment.\nBanks and financial institutions will also be allowed to borrow directly from the fund to help facilitate the leasing of solar equipment to small businesses, he said.\nGoing the route of offering tax breaks to incentivise rooftop solar takeup is broadly supported by the South African Revenue Service (SARS). During a webinar this week, SARS commissioner Edward Kieswetter said that he supported the move.\nWhile SARS is not in charge of setting financial policy – it only collects taxes – the commissioner said that he was actively engaging with the national government around this.\nHe said that the last amendment for policies on renewable energy was made in 2016, where a long-term incentive was given that equated to an effective 28% discount on investments in renewable energy at the time.\nKieswetter said that SARS is engaging with National Treasury to review the policy to find ways to provide relief and incentivise the adoption of private and own generation.\nWhile no progress on the measure was mentioned by Ramaphosa during his speech, it is known that other solar measures are part of the country’s Energy Action Plan.\nWork is also underway to develop a net billing framework for municipalities to enable customers to feed electricity from rooftop solar installations onto the grid, and designated local content for solar panels has been reduced from 100% to 30% to alleviate constraints.\nThe City of Cape Town already has a head-start with the plan, having recently announced that it will be buying electricity from commercial solar installations from June 2023, with plans to apply the same to residential customers from 2024.\nThe push for solar comes off a big year for the energy source in South Africa, with research from PwC showing that over R5 billion worth of panels were imported in 2022.\n“We estimate that these panels provide an additional 2,000 MW of generating capacity during 2023. Based on varying usage patterns, these off-grid solar panels could be saving the rest of the country from an additional stage of load-shedding at any given time,” PwC said.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/663595/big-boost-for-rooftop-solar-in-south-africa/?utm_campaign=Prop%20Data%20Newsletter&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--ZNdpdrio20chOB1uD3tXAh9aH6FwmsK4AOIHpssKqvDPxVd-_x9QEPIzDxIENp7a7lBY8"}

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+{"doc_id": "14732d98c1a3801c10a6632a31b7c396", "text": "Tanzania will soon join Kenya as Africa50's shareholder to enhance its infrastructural project.\nThe East Country is at an advanced discussion stage with the Pan-African infrastructure investment platform to become its 33rd shareholding country on the continent.\nBy joining the Moroccan-based organisation, Tanzania is looking at attracting investment in energy, Internet, techs, electricity lines, among others, like its neighbours Kenya.\nKenya, which is its member, has been attracting investment in data center, affordable internet, and transmission line initiatives after joining the group.\nPAIX Data Centres, a Pan-African cloud and data centres provider with two data centers in Nairobi and Accra (Ghana)-for instance-got $20 million (Sh2.3 billion) funding to expand its services across the continent.\nThe series B funding, which forms the first tranche, came from Africa50, an African infrastructure investment platform.\nIt also invested $28 million (Sh3.18 billion) in a Kenyan-based affordable internet provider, POA Internet.\nThe Series C funding round was led by Novastar Ventures and Africa50, bringing its total funding raised so far to $36 million (Sh4.1 billion).\nTanzania application comes after the Republic of Cabo Verde was admitted as Africa50's 32nd shareholding State.\nThe admission of the West African country now brings its shareholding countries number to 32, comprising 29 African countries, the African Development Bank, the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), and Bank Al-Maghrib.\n“Cabo Verde’s shareholding represents significant support to our organization in our mandate to bridge Africa’s infrastructure development and financing gap,\n\"The catalytic role of infrastructure as a driver of socio-economic development has never been stronger and partnerships with our Shareholders, including Cabo Verde, are critical to improving the quality of life of our people and ensuring a resilient and sustainable economic recovery,\" Africa50 Board of Directors Chairman Akinwumi Adesina said.\nWithin five years of operations, Africa50 has made 15 investments with an aggregate value of US$5 billion (Sh5929 billion).\nThis has helped over 17 million people in Africa access reliable and cleaner electricity.\nApart from the energy sub-sector, it has supported projects in transport, logistics and ICT.\n“Cabo Verde’s shareholding further demonstrates the critical role of Africa50 to African countries and infrastructure in Africa in general. More importantly, it provides us with additional capital to fulfill our mandate,\n\"The infrastructure needs of the continent are significant and we need to scale up and speed up projects to accelerate Africa’s recovery from the effects of the pandemic. Additionally, we need to help mitigate against the devastating impact of climate change, and help Africa weather the recent global, food and energy crisis,\" Africa50 CEO Alain Ebobissé said during its General Shareholders Meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, that attracted top African Governments officials, private sectors, among others.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/marketplace/tanzania-eyes-africa50-s-membership-after-kenya-3887496"}

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+{"doc_id": "15968fea96882125c548b891beec63b3", "text": "Kenya Airways (KQ) has resumed direct daily flights to New York as it seeks to cash in on the summer season expected to push up demand for air travel.\nThe national carrier has been operating five daily flights on the US route since January when the demand for passengers was low as America entered into the winter season.\nKQ says the decision to ramp up the frequencies has been informed by high forward booking from passengers seeking summer tickets.\n“We have increased our frequencies to daily on the New York route because of high demand from passengers as we approach the summer season,” said the airline.\nThe move comes as a boost to the national carrier, which is fighting to fly out of the loss-making territory.\nThe daily flights to the US come at a time when Ethiopian Airlines-Africa’s largest carrier has expanded its flights to the US by adding another route to Atlanta, and reintroduction of the New York route via Abidjan, heightening competition on the route.\nThe Ethiopian carrier introduced four weekly flights on the Atlanta route last month, allowing passengers who want to fly directly to the city to avoid connecting through JFK International Airport in New York, where most airlines that have direct links with the US fly. The carrier first started serving New York from its main hub Addis Ababa via Abidjan in June 2019.\nHowever, the route was suspended in March 2020 due to Covid-19. Later, the flight resumed serving New York via Lomé starting in October 2020.\nAtlanta is Ethiopian Airlines’ sixth destination in the US besides New York, Newark, Chicago, Washington DC and cargo service to Miami.\nKQ has been struggling financially, making it rely on the Treasury for bailouts to remain afloat, with the government announcing recently it would stop funding the carrier.\nThe plan, if implemented, could save taxpayers billions of shillings spent annually to keep afloat the national carrier that last returned a profit in 2012.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/shipping-logistics/kenya-airways-resumes-daily-new-york-flights-4276200"}

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+{"doc_id": "186aaa8cf3d8a9bca2a3d3957cc7d170", "text": "The Broad-Based-BEE Commission has called for tighter legislation and greater powers to address companies that undermine transformation efforts in South Africa.\nThe commission briefed the media on its work over the past 20 years on Thursday (30 November), highlighting the body’s intentions of rooting out and clamping down on businesses that are fronting as BEE-compliant.\n“To date, we have received 1,273 complaints that the commission has registered. Of those, 84% of them pertain to fronting,” said Lindiwe Madonsela, senior compliance manager of the BEE Commission.\nThe B-BBEE Act has defined fronting practices to mean transactions, arrangements or other acts or conduct that directly or indirectly undermines or frustrates the achievement of the objective(s) of the B-BBEE Act or the implementation of any of the provisions of the B-BBEE Act.\nThis effectively means businesses are misrepresenting their transformation standing.\nThe Broad-Based BEE Commissioner Tshediso Matona has slammed these findings and described them as efforts to frustrate and oppose the commission’s work and undermine transformation in the country.\n“Recently, in my view, there has been an emergence of certain civil society groups that represent white interests, that have made it their business to attack transformation in South Africa,” he said.\nHe also lamented the slow pace of law enforcement to take action against businesses that have been found to be inviolation of the current BEE legislation.\nThe commission gave an update on the status of transformation across businesses in South Africa, stating that 33.9% of businesses are black-owned in South Africa – a 4.4% increase recorded in 2021.\nMadonsela said while this is an improvement, she noted with concern that, from a Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) perspective, there are no companies that are 100% owned by black people in the country – based on reports the commission has received.\nMatona also highlighted the surge in fraudulent BEE-compliance certificates across businesses and has encouraged professionals to speak up against compliance issues and called for companies to play by the Triple BEE legislation.\nMatona added that efforts are now underway to strengthen legislation to ensure the prosecution of those businesses – calling for more powers to prosecute guilty entities, which he said will drive incentives to follow legislation and make the penalties clear.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/735407/bee-commission-is-coming-after-these-businesses-in-south-africa/"}

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+{"doc_id": "19085f3c99b98d208801a3a486996ac7", "text": "Professional services company PwC has published its report on South African executive directors for 2023, revealing the top-paying industries for executives in the country right now.\nThe report analysed executive pay during the period from 1 March 2022 to 28 February 2023, focusing primarily on executive remuneration among companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).\nThe group noted that, in instances where executive directors have resigned from their roles on or before the cut-off date, they were excluded from the data set. Executive directors appointed after the company’s financial year-end have also been excluded from the analysis.\nIt added that, where directors were paid in foreign currency, their remunerations were concerted into rands using a one-year average exchange rate as of 28 February 2023.\nThe firm also focused on the ‘total guaranteed package’ (TGP), which represents the portion of total remuneration regardless of employee performance. It is a fixed cost made up of basic pay plus a cash value attributable to benefits.\nAs directors’ fees rarely follow a standard distribution curve, the financial services firm provided a snapshot of the average TGP across three quartiles: lower – median – and upper – on the top 200 JSE-listed companies.\nAn examination of TGP fees paid across the JSE shows that the average salary for chief executive officers (CEOs) was R9.36 million over the period.\nBy comparison, the average pay for chief financial officers (CFOs) was R5.93 million, and the average pay for executive directors was R4.84 million.\nTop paying Industries\nAs part of its analysis of executive director remuneration trends, PwC revealed the top 10 highest-paying industries on the JSE – averaging the pay across top management, including CEOs, CFOs, and Executive Directors (EDs).\nAccording to the data, the telecommunications industry pays the highest executive salaries, on average, across the JSE. The average telecoms executive gets paid an estimated total guaranteed package of R10.56 million – with the upper limit sitting around R13.57 million while the lower limit is R8 million.\nConsumer staples – including companies in beverages, food products, tobacco, household products and personal products – are the second highest-paying industry. Execs in these fields earn, on average, R9.82 million annually, with salaries ranging from R5.36 million to R13.23 million.\nFollowing consumer staples is the basic materials industry – such as mining – in third, with the average executive guaranteed pay estimated at R8.98 million annually, ranging from R4.88 million to R10.54 million.\nThe table below lists the top 10 highest-paying industries in South Africa in 2023, as outlined by PwC.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/719882/the-10-industries-that-pay-the-highest-executive-salaries-in-south-africa/"}

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+{"doc_id": "191dd1f3c5f86acf5b21812d023cc8ba", "text": "South Africa’s biggest retailer, Shoprite, has recorded a strong financial performance despite spending over R1.3 billion on diesel to curb load shedding.\nIn its financial results for the 52 weeks that ended 2 July 2023, the group grew sales by 16.9% to R215 billion, which its supermarkets in South Africa have underpinned.\nCheckers and Checkers Hyper also saw 18.0% sales growth, whilst Checkers Sixty60 increased sales by 81.5%. The on-demand grocery delivery app also expanded its services from 300 stores in 2022 to 466 stores in 2023.\nThe low prices and affordability at Shoprite and Usave also resulted in sales growth of 15.6%.\nOverall, the group’s trading profit also increased by 5.7%, which resulted in a trading margin of 5.5% (restated 2022: 6.1%).\n“This was notably impacted by the R1.3 billion (2022: R226 million) diesel expense required to operate generators across our Supermarkets RSA store base during the year due to higher stages of load shedding,” the group said.\nAveraged out, the group has gone from spending R620,000 a day on diesel in 2022 to R3.56 million a day – a 470% increase.\nDue to the effect on liquidity caused by load shedding, the group did not repurchase any shares under its share buy-back programme, which has resulted in the group buying back R1.5 billion worth of shares since the 2021 financial year.\nReturning to positive news, the group opened 382 stores (340 net), which expanded its footprint to 3,326 stores – 94 of these new stores were acquired from Massmart.\nAmidst the improved financial position, the group upped its dividend by 10.5% to 415 cents per share.\n- Group sales of merchandise increased by 16.9% to R215.0 billion\n- Supermarkets RSA sales of merchandise increased by 17.8% to R173.6 billion\n- Diluted headline earnings per share (DHEPS) increased by 9.7% to 1 159.4 cents (restated 2022: 1 056.9 cents)\n- Adjusted headline earnings per share (adjusted HEPS) increased by 3.8% to 1 161.2 cents (restated 2022: 1 118.6 cents)\n- Full-year dividend per share (DPS) increased by 10.5% to 663 cents (2022: 600 cents). This is a result of the interim DPS increasing by 6.4% to 248 cents (2022: 233 cents) and final DPS increasing by 13.1% to 415 cents (2022: 367 cents)\n- The Group created 8,131 new jobs, including 4,480 jobs retained from the Massmart acquisition\nOutlook\nIn the first six weeks of FY24, the group’s sales growth in its South African supermarkets segment has reached double-digits, which is partly due to a reduction in selling price inflation.\n“In terms of costs, the group’s increased diesel expense as a result of the step change in load-shedding from last year is in our cost base from September 2023,” it said.\n“The Group continues to trade uninterrupted at current higher stages of load-shedding as a result of the Group’s solar PV installations and considerable diesel generator infrastructure in place across our South African supermarket operations,” it said,\n“It is clear that our customers’ disposable incomes are under enormous pressure, and there is an increasing need for us to sustain the lowest prices and best value across our various supermarket formats.”", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/716182/south-africas-biggest-retailer-is-spending-r3-5-million-a-day-to-beat-load-shedding/"}

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+{"doc_id": "1941f84a99064b774f1f382adb5de67f", "text": "The Philip Ndegwa family has bought an additional 31.6 million shares of NCBA Group with a current market value of Sh1 billion in transactions that have seen them overtake the Jomo Kenyatta family to become the bank’s top shareholder.\nThe Ndegwas’ investment vehicle First Chartered Securities raised its stake in the lender to 14.44 percent –currently worth Sh8 billion— in the year ended December 2022 according to disclosures in the company’s latest annual report.\nRead: Kenyattas gain Sh3.1bn in a year as NCBA surges to top\nThis was up from the 12.52 percent stake that First Chartered held a year earlier.\nThe Kenyattas’ investment vehicle Enke meanwhile maintained its ownership at 13.2 percent which is valued at Sh7.4 billion.\nThis is the latest investment by the Ndegwas who have been bullish on NCBA for decades, investing substantial capital starting from NIC Group and CBA Group which were merged in September 2019 to create the Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed bank.\nThe expansion of First Charterted’s holdings boosted the personal portfolios of NCBA directors and brothers James Ndegwa and Andrew Ndegwa who are among the beneficiaries of the investment vehicle.\nJames’ direct and indirect ownership in NCBA rose by 5.55 million shares currently worth Sh188.7 million to 75.2 million shares equivalent to a 4.57 percent stake.\nAndrew’s ownership increased by 5.57 million shares currently valued at Sh189.1 million to 76.3 million shares representing a 4.63 percent equity.\nTogether, the brothers saw their portfolio grow by Sh377.8 million to Sh5.1 billion. Most of the additional share purchases by First Chartered were implemented towards the end of last year.\nThe Ndegwas’ increased investment in NCBA comes as the bank’s performance has improved in the wake of the merger which allowed it to build scale in a market where size is a key determinant of the industry’s profit distribution.\n“The financial outcomes across the group, three years post-merger are a clear demonstration that we are on track with our strategic priorities and have successfully built a bigger and more profitable business,” NCBA’s chief executive John Gachora wrote in the report.\nThe bank’s earnings, profitability metrics, dividend payouts and market value have all improved, benefitting long-term investors including former shareholders of NIC Group who were allocated a combined 47 percent ownership in the merged entity.\nNCBA now has a market value of Sh56 billion compared to the Sh17.7 billion that NIC held in the year ended December 2018 –its last full year of operations before the merger.\nThis implies a gain of Sh8.5 billion or nearly 50 percent expansion of paper wealth for the former NIC investors alone. NCBA posted a 35 percent net profit growth to Sh13.7 billion in the year ended December 2022 when it lifted its dividend payout to a record Sh7 billion or Sh4.25 per share.\nRead: Ndegwa family buys Sh296m NCBA shares\nThis marks a payout ratio of 50.8 percent, more than double the 20.8 percent distribution of net income that the bank made prior to the merger. NCBA’s return on shareholder funds also improved to 17.1 percent in 2022 from the 12 percent recorded in 2018.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/companies/ndegwas-overtake-kenyattas-in-ncba-stake--4245808"}

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+{"doc_id": "19468eeb09922696a05f2af32a1b26d9", "text": "Woolworths has seen a big boost in profit and earnings after dropping the Australian department store chain David Jones.\nIn a trading statement for the 52 weeks ended 25 June 2023, Woolworths said that its Earnings per share (EPS), Headline EPS (HEPS) and adjusted diluted HEPS (adHEPS) were expected to be 20% higher than the reported prior year.\nThe current financial year only had a 9-month contribution from David Jones, whilst the prior year had a full 12 months.\nHowever, the group said its earnings are now expected to be far higher than the prior 20% predictions.\nBelow are the Total group expectations for the 52 weeks ended 25 June 2023:\nDavid Jones sale\nWoolworths completed the sale of David Jones to Anchorage Partners in March 2023, which took about R17 billion of liabilities off Wooloworth’s books.\nWoolworths acquired David Jones in 2014 for roughly A$2.2 billion (about R22 billion at the time).\n“The history here has been a painful one. The transaction allows us to overnight improve our return on capital by several percentage points,” Woolworths Chief Executive Officer Roy Bagattini said.\nWoolworths initially tried to replicate its success in the South African food business with David Jones, but it simply didn’t work, with Bagattini noting that the retailers are fundamentally different.\nWhereas Woolworths sells mainly its own-branded goods, David Jones looks to offer other brands.\nWoolworths does still own the flagship store in Melbourne, which is being leased to David Jones on a long-term basis on market-related terms.\nWoolworths said it is returning to its core clothing range while refocusing on its five local brands and other Australian business Country Road.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/712696/good-times-for-woolworths/"}

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+{"doc_id": "1bf4a1bbb1d2ea90114db310c160491e", "text": "FIrstRand chief executive officer Alan Pullinger says that the South African government’s “open support” of Russia is presenting significant geopolitical risks for businesses and could bring extremely negative consequences to bear.\nCommenting on the FirstRand interim results for the six months ended December 2022 on Thursday (2 March), Pullinger flagged the most significant risks to the company’s and South Africa’s prospects in the period ahead.\nWhile the CEO flagged the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) greylisting of South Africa as one such risk, he said that the geopolitical risks from South Africa cosying up to Russia were more worrying.\nChina, Russia, and South Africa wrapped up a ten-day joint naval drill this week – an exercise that overlapped with the one-year mark of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.\nWhile the South African government’s official stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine – which has been going on for over a year – is to remain neutral and push negotiations for peace, the country has come under close scrutiny by several nations opposed to Russia.\nThe government’s position on these drills is that they make up standard procedure and are routine in dealing with various militaries – noting that similar drills are run with South Africa and US and UK – and dismissing any outright support for Russia and its invasion of Ukraine.\nHowever, the optics around the participation with Russia, at a politically sensitive time, have been seen as South Africa effectively throwing its lot in with China and Russia in support of the war.\nSouth Africa’s office of international relations has also described its relationship with Russia as friendly, while president Cyril Ramaphosa has echoed pro-Russia talking points – such as blaming NATO for the “conflict”.\nPullinger said that despite claims of neutrality, South Africa’s relationship with Russia is being seen as open support, and it’s starting to reverberate among the country’s trading partners.\n“Our government’s open support for Russia is increasingly being called out by our major trading partners,” he said.\n“This could have extremely negative consequences for the country, which benefits far more from trade with and investment from the USA, UK and Europe than from Russia.”\nFor the banking sector in particular, Pullinger said that the sector – including the South African Reserve Bank – crucially relies on access to the US dollar, global clearing and settlement, which is a privilege and can be revoked at any time.\n“For all of these reasons, FirstRand does not share the government’s enthusiasm for Russia,” he said.\nPullinger said that compared to these risks, the FATF greylisting is less impactful.\nSouth Africa was officially added to the FATF’s watch list at the end of February for failing to have the necessary checks and balances in place to clamp down on money laundering and terrorism financing.\nThe FATF flagged issues with South Africa’s dirty money laws as far back as 2019, and in 2021 gave the government until October 2022 to get its affairs in order. The government tried to fast-track a host of new laws and regulations to deal with the issues raised, but fell short at the deadline.\nPullinger said the greylisting is “unfortunate”, but noted that it was not unexpected and should be manageable.\nThe main headwinds for South Africa and the banking sector, in particular, are increased compliance and transaction costs, and perhaps lower capital flows to the country, he said.\n“National Treasury, the FSCA and SARB put in a concerted effort to avoid this outcome, but some of the necessary deliverables were not within their control. As a sector, we will continue to work hard in partnership with them to get off the grey list as soon as possible,” he said.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/669631/top-banking-ceo-warns-that-south-africa-is-getting-too-close-to-russia/"}

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+{"doc_id": "21689efc8673a6c85f94747a9e4d809c", "text": "The government’s decision to hive off property valued at Sh10 billion from Telkom Kenya’s balance sheet without the knowledge of Helios Investment Partners is one of the factors that prompted the private equity fund to initiate its exit from the struggling telecommunications firm in 2021.\nDocuments seen by Business Daily show that this was one of the two major developments that prompted the private equity fund to exercise its contractual right requiring the government to buy its stake.\n“The government of Kenya proceeded to unlawfully expropriate the prime property of Telkom Kenya Limited situated along Ngong’ Road Nairobi measuring approximately 79 acres valued at over Kes 10 billion without Telkom’s or Jamhuri Holding Ltd.’s consent and without any compensation being committed or paid,\" the letter from Paul Cunningham dated March 20, 2023, addressed to the Office of the Clerk of the National Assembly reads.\nMr Cunningham is a director at Jamhuri Holding Ltd which is the special purpose vehicle that was set up by Helios for its investment in Telkom Kenya Ltd in June 2016.\nIt has also emerged that the failure to consummate the joint venture between Telkom Kenya and Airtel Kenya in 2019 was also another major factor prompting the exit of Helios.\nDocuments show that it had been expected that the joint venture arrangement would scale down the need for further capital injection by Jamhuri Holding Ltd into Telkom Kenya.\n“There were considerable delays in securing regulatory approval for the merger transaction, in part attributable to protracted investigations launched by the Ethics and Anticorruption Commission on Telkom Kenya and its officials on various matters which were ultimately dropped with no adverse findings,\" Cunningham’s letter states.\nAccording to the letter, Telkom Kenya allegedly suffered a loss of $200 million (Sh26.1 billion) due to the government's failure to approve the proposed merger with Airtel through its agencies such as the Competition Authority of Kenya.\nMr Cunningham states that the Kenyan government acquired the 60 per cent stake in Telkom Kenya through a series of transactions including taking over shareholder loans that were first provided by French telecommunications firm Orange. Helios bought its stake from Orange.\nHelios also received a payout from the government, with the PE firm saying it did not make a gain from its investment in Telkom Kenya when it exited.\n“The transaction between Jamhuri Holdings and the government of Kenya was completed on August 12, 2022, following receipt of $51,186,058 (Sh6.6 billion at current exchange rates) by Jamhuri Holdings from the government of Kenya and delivery of the duly signed transfer documents from Jamhuri Holdings,” the letter says.\n“Therefore, in summary, Jamhuri Holdings obtained no more than the money it had invested directly into the business since it became a shareholder and the government of Kenya received all of Jamhuri Holdings’ shareholding and all the indebtedness owed by Telkom Kenya to Jamhuri Holdings.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/companies/why-pe-firm-helios-disposed-telkom-kenya-stake-in-a-huff--4167478?__sta=vhg.hhksexovlelzhlzjnmjofs%7CBUJT&__stm_medium=email&__stm_source=smartech"}

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+{"doc_id": "238d5d71cb6b5a1b6ccb8258a352ecdc", "text": "Principal Secretary nominee for Treasury will push for a foreign strategic investor to buy a controlling stake in Kenya Airways as a path of returning the national carrier to profitability.\nTreasury Principal Secretary nominee Chris Kiptoo told MPs the government will push for a fresh equity investor who is expected to inject capital and offer management expertise in the next step of restructuring.\nIf the sale goes through, it would see the State reduce its shareholding from 48.9 percent and cut the ownership of lenders who converted their debt to a 38 percent stake.\nAir France-KLM owns a small stake in Kenya Airways and it remains to be seen if the multinational, previously KQ’s anchor shareholder, will sell its remaining 7.76 percent stake.\nKenya will prefer a cash-rich foreign airline as a strategic investor in a plan that could offer the national carrier aviation expertise and cut its reliance on the State for operational cash.\n“It is time to relook the national carrier and ensure that it continues to operate without government support. We need to bring in a strategic investor,” Dr Kiptoo told the National Assembly Finance and National Planning committee vetting principal secretary nominees.\nHe said KQ, as the national carrier is popularly known, operated profitably when a private investor pumped in money and that the government must seek the model in the push to return the airline to profitability.\nThe government in 1995 sold a 26 percent stake in KQ to Dutch airline KLM and sold a further 22 percent stake to local shareholders through an initial public offering at the Nairobi bourse in 1996. The deal offered KLM seats on the KQ board, the right to appoint certain executives, in particular the CFO, and act as the technical partner for the national carrier.\nKLM has reduced its stake from 26.7 percent after the conversion of State debt and bank loans to equity diluted the firm’s ownership to 7.76 percent.\nThe multinational had expressed its desire to exit KQ when the government opted to nationalise the airline.\nIn 2021, KQ agreed with Air France-KLM to end a code share for Africa-Europe routes.\nThe national carrier has received multi-billion shilling State bailouts amid delayed recovery from a travel slump following Covid-19.\nThe fresh restructuring plan comes after the State dropped the favoured long-term solution that was anchored on nationalisation of the airline.\nThe plan approved by lawmakers in July 2019 would have led to the delisting of the airline from the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).\nRoads, Transport and Public Works Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen during his vetting also alluded to a plan split KQ into various subsidiaries along its main business lines.\nHe did not offer details how the breakup would help turn around the carrier that has been in losses for over a decade. KQ’s main business lines—cargo, passenger and handling—are all in losses.\nALSO READ: Kenya Airways first-half loss narrows to Sh9.8bn, eyes profit in 2024\nPassenger service returned an operating loss of Sh4.5 billion, cargo Sh1.74 billion and handling Sh166 million.\nThis marks a departure from the Treasury’s earlier position to pursue a turnaround under the plan to nationalise KQ.\nA law to pave the way for the nationalisation of the airline, which had been proposed before the pandemic, is before Parliament.\nALSO READ: President Ruto wants Kenya Airways split after collapse of State takeover\nKenya wanted to emulate countries like Ethiopia which run air transport assets — from airports to fuelling operations —under a single company, using funds from the more profitable parts to support others.\nUnder the model approved by MPs, KQ would become one of four subsidiaries in an aviation holding company.\nThe others would be Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, an aviation college and the Kenya Airports Authority operating all other airports.\nThe previous administration, which was replaced by President William Ruto’s on September 13, pushed for the restructuring of the carrier on the back of the multi-billion shilling bailout after dropping the nationalisation plan. Mr Murkomen told Parliament that the State would not convert its debts or bailout cash into shares.\n“We do not want to cross the 50 percent shareholding because we want KQ to remain a privately owned company,” he said. “We have to ask ourselves why KQ is in the situation it is currently. It is because of mismanagement of project Mawingu, but there is a restructuring process currently underway,” he said.\nKQ recorded a ninth consecutive half-year loss, sinking it Sh15 billion deeper into a negative equity position.\nThe airline, which has been surviving on State bailouts since the Covid-19 pandemic, reported a Sh9.8 billion loss in August — a better performance than the Sh11.48 billion loss it recorded in the same period a year earlier.\nIt booked a further Sh5.3 billion loss on hedged foreign exchange differences, driving its total comprehensive loss to Sh14.9 billion.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/companies/treasury-seeks-kq-sale-foreign-strategic-investor-4020250"}

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+{"doc_id": "2446f87ee0978fd0811354d5218c5e16", "text": "Safaricom is set to buy M-Pesa Holding Company Limited — the firm that holds hundreds of billions of shillings powering its mobile money service — from London-based Vodafone Group Plc.\nThe Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed company will pay the British multinational –which was previously its top shareholder— a token amount of $1 in the deal to receive regulatory approvals in the next few weeks.\nThe transaction, disclosed by Vodafone, has the potential to boost Safaricom’s cash flows besides earning the company interest income through investment of part of the M-Pesa war chest in short-term securities.\n“On 17 April 2023, the group entered into an agreement to sell M-Pesa Holding Company Limited (‘MPHCL’) to Safaricom Plc, an associate entity of the group, for USD 1 [Sh137 at current exchange rates],” Vodafone said on Tuesday when announcing its results for the year ended March.\n“No material gain or loss is expected to arise on disposal. Completion of this transaction is subject to various approvals which are expected to be obtained before or during July 2023.”\nM-Pesa Holding keeps customer funds in trust for the benefit of M-Pesa customers in Kenya.\nIt acts as the independent trustee for M-Pesa customers, independently administering the trust and holding all funds in the mobile money service.\nM-Pesa Holding is also a cash cow on its own, holding and investing hundreds of billions of shillings on a short-term basis amid rapid growth in customer deposits as well as transaction volumes and values.\nVodafone says M-Pesa Holding had short-term investments of €1.247 billion [Sh186.2 billion at current exchange rates] as of March 31, 2023.\nIt also held M-Pesa customer funds amounting to €1.226 billion [Sh183.1 billion] on the same date.\nRead: Ethiopia grants Safaricom M-Pesa licence\n“Balances included in the group’s consolidated financial statements for M-Pesa Holding at 31 March 2023 include short-term investments of €1,247 million and €1,226 million due to M-Pesa customers, recorded within Other investments and Other creditors, respectively,” Vodafone said.\nThe multinational added that any profit generated by M-Pesa Holding is currently donated for use for public charitable purposes only after defraying direct costs.\nIt remains to be seen whether the same policy on the use of profits will be retained under Safaricom’s control.\nThe Kenyan telco has been doing a lot of business with M-Pesa Holding as part of its mobile money service which has evolved from a person-to-person cash transfer platform to offer payments and credit among others.\nThe company sold services worth Sh96.8 billion to M-Pesa Holding in the year ended March 2022, according to its latest available annual report. This was an increase from Sh73.3 billion the year before.\nM-Pesa Holding owed Safaricom Sh1.16 billion in the review period, down from receivables worth Sh2.29 billion at the close of the prior year.\nThe transfer of M-Pesa Holding to Safaricom marks the telco’s increased control of the major aspects of the mobile money service which was pioneered in Kenya but whose intellectual property was previously held by Vodafone.\nSafaricom and South Africa’s Vodacom Group Limited in March 2020 teamed up to acquire the M-Pesa brand from Vodafone at a cost of Sh2.1 billion.\nThe companies now hold the mobile money brand in their joint venture firm M-Pesa Africa which is registered in Kenya and which they own on a 50/50 basis.\nThe move saved Safaricom significant licence fees it was paying to the UK firm to use the brand.\nVodafone is the majority shareholder of Vodacom with a 65.1 percent stake and also holds a five percent indirect equity in Safaricom.\nThe transfer of M-Pesa Holding to Safaricom comes as Vodafone’s new chief executive Margherita Della Valle swore to simplify the business and improve its performance.\n“Today I am announcing my plans for Vodafone. Our performance has not been good enough. To consistently deliver, Vodafone must change. My priorities are customers, simplicity and growth,” she said.\n“We will simplify our organisation, cutting out complexity to regain our competitiveness. We will reallocate resources to deliver the quality service our customers expect and drive further growth from the unique position of Vodafone Business.”\nRead: M-Pesa launches interest-free loans for buying goods\nThe multinational said the transfer of its 55 percent stake in Vodafone Egypt to Vodacom in December last year was among the simplification of the management of its African assets.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/companies/safaricom-buys-m-pesa-cash-firm-from-vodafone--4237244"}

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+{"doc_id": "2519a19d923f0b2179ce6558e1ebbcbf", "text": "Despite some volatility with the rand, global oil prices have remained stable at lower levels in November, cementing a petrol and diesel price cut for South African motorists next week.\nThe Department of Mineral Resources and Energy will announce fuel price changes before they come into effect on Wednesday, 6 December, where current data points to a cut for both petrol and diesel.\nDaily under and over-recovery numbers from the Central Energy Fund (CEF) point to a petrol price cut of around R1.00 per litre, and a much bigger cut for diesel at between R2.22 and R2.28 per litre.\nHaving maintained relative strength for most of November, the rand is still contributing to an over-recovery of 32-38 cents per litre in local fuel prices – but the bulk of the benefit is coming from over-recoveries in international product prices, which are contributing 66 cents per litre for petrol and R1.90 per litre for diesel.\nAt these rates, South African motorists could see petrol prices reach R22.90 for 95 grade, while diesel could come down to a wholesale price of just over R20 per litre in time for the festive period, where many will be travelling to holiday destinations.\nWhile the rand has experienced quite a bit of volatility in recent weeks – trading in a wide range, between R18.10 to the dollar and even briefly touching past R19.00 to the dollar last week – it has averaged around R18.50 to the dollar for November.\nThis is much lower than the R19.10 average seen in October, hence its positive contribution to the over-recovery.\nOil prices, meanwhile, have come down significantly from the turmoil in global markets in early October where the Hama-Israel war sent traders into a spin over fears that the wider Middle East would be pulled into the conflict.\nHowever, as those jitters dissipated over November, prices fell, even testing a move under $80 a barrel at one point.\nOverall, international product prices have also trended much lower than the levels seen in October. Some uncertainty still persists in the market, but this late into November, changes are unlikely to impact the pricing for December.\nAccording to Bloomberg analysis, global benchmark Brent climbed above $82 a barrel after rallying by more than 2% earlier this week.\nPrices firmed on expectations across markets that the US Fed has finished with policy tightening and may start cutting borrowing costs in the States next year, with recent dollar weakness also providing support.\n“The price move pulled oil out of a holding pattern ahead of an OPEC+ meeting that’s set to take place Thursday (30 November). The producer group is due to meet online and set policy for 2024, but has yet to resolve a dispute over output quotas for some African members, according to delegates,” the group said.\nDespite these uncertainties, however, oil remains on track for a back-to-back monthly decline on increased supply from countries outside the OPEC+ countries – but this will boost pressure on the cartel and its allies to impose deeper output cuts, Bloomberg warned.\nRegardless, economists and analysts have pencilled in a petrol price cut for December, which should go some way in helping ease inflation, and settle worries over any potential interest rate hikes in the new year.\nInflation numbers in September and October were pushed higher by significant petrol price hikes in those months, which triggered some concerns that the South African Reserve Bank would hike rates in its November meeting.\nHowever, the bank unanimously voted to hold rates, with the prevailing view being that inflation will ease, and firmly settle within the target band.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/734789/big-petrol-price-cut-coming-next-week-2/"}

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+{"doc_id": "25b3b20fa0ff4e82fef45be3505fd5ff", "text": "A mid-week block purchase of Safaricom shares by an unknown local institutional investor has halted the slide in the telco’s shares that had hit a 69-month low, triggering bargain purchases.\nNairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) data show Safaricom’s traded volume jumped to 57.13 million on January 18 from Tuesday’s 4.06 million, a rare surge for a counter that had witnessed sub 10 million trading for multiple days in recent weeks.\nSafaricom’s traded share volumes rose further to 107.51 million as more local investors rushed to snap up the stock as market watchers believed the telco had hit its lowest level at the Nairobi bourse, triggering a price appreciation.\nSafaricom's share price had touched a low of Sh20.60 on Wednesday last week to send the telco’s value to Sh825.35 billion—the lowest in 69 months.\nThe block purchase from one local institutional investor triggered more purchases on the belief the price had bottomed out, lifting the share to Sh21.75 on Thursday and Sh23 at the close of trading on Monday.\n“We saw a small rally driven by sentiments that Safaricom had hit bottom. One local institutional investor started buying then others joined, leading to the price appreciation,” said Kenneth Minjire, senior associate for debt and equity at AIB-AXYS Africa.\nRead: Safaricom share fall eases market concentration fears\nSafaricom’s daily turnover was valued at Sh86 million on Tuesday last week but rose to Sh1.18 billion the following day before hitting Sh2.2 billion on Thursday on the back of increased trading.\nThe telco’s valuation has risen by Sh96.16 billion in the last three days to hit Sh921.51 billion, making up 47.1 percent of the NSE’s combined market value of Sh1.957 trillion.\nSafaricom’s share of combined investor wealth at the NSE touched a high of 63 percent in May 2021, a dominance that is making it difficult for investors to gauge the performance of the bourse.\nAt Sh20.60, Safaricom’s share had hit levels last seen on May 23, 2017, when it closed the day averaging Sh20.50.\nThe plunge in share price had wiped out Sh975.6 billion in 17 months on the back of the continued exit of foreigners to cut the telco’s market value by more than half from the Sh1.84 trillion it was worth on August 23, 2021, when its share hit an all-time high of Sh44.95.\nThe Sh975.6 billion fall in Safaricom’s value made up about 90 percent of the Sh1.07 trillion that the combined stocks at the NSE shed in the 17 months.\nThe telco’s share fall had endured the worst fall (54 percent) on the NSE in the past 17 months, followed by Centum (48.4 percent) on the back of multiple factors, including interest rate hikes in developed economies, effects of the Russia-Ukraine war, the General Election and the drop in half-year results.\nThe Safaricom stock is heavily in the hands of foreign investors and a jump in interest rates in developed countries such as the US cut the attractiveness of the equities in emerging markets such as Kenya.\nHigh inflation rates forced central banks to adjust rates upwards, with the US Federal Reserve hiking its benchmark rate to a 15-year high by end of December, making the market more attractive to foreign investors in terms of returns.\nNow analysts say they expect a sustained rebound in the telco’s share, partly pegged on the interim dividend decision that is expected to be made by the Safaricom board by the end of next month.\n“An interim dividend will serve to push up the share price further. There was a lag around the exit of the Safaricom chairman but the market seems to have overcome this,” said Mr Minjire.\nSafaricom chief finance officer Dilip Pal said in mid-November that the telco’s board would discuss interim dividend “during January/February once we have a visibility of our full year’s net income”.\nCallstreet Research and Analytics CEO George Bodo says he does not expect Safaricom to match last year’s interim payout of Sh0.64 per share amounting to Sh25.64 billion that the telco announced at the end of February last year.\n“Safaricom needs a lot of money for Ethiopia operations and may want to conserve cash. I don’t see it matching last year’s interim dividend. But it may choose to surprise investors,” said Mr Bodo.\nRead: Safaricom value dips below Sh1trn after US rate hikes\nThe telco launched Ethiopian operations on October 6 last year, funding the activities through debt.\nThe management has maintained that Ethiopian costs will not impact the policy of paying out 80 percent of net profit as dividends to investors.\nSafaricom’s net profit for the six months ended September fell by 10 percent to Sh33.5 billion on the impact of a cut on the mobile termination rate (MTR) and higher costs associated with the entry into Ethiopia.\nTotal revenue rose by 4.6 percent to Sh153.4 billion in the period, helped by an 8.7 percent increase in M- Pesa revenue to Sh56.9 billion, and an 11.3 percent jump in data earnings to Sh26.3 billion.\nVoice revenue fell by 3.8 percent to Sh39.9 billion, while total costs rose by a third to Sh31 billion, largely on the back of the firm’s investment in its new Ethiopia subsidiary.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/companies/mystery-investor-s-purchase-of-safaricom-shares-stops--4096800"}

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+{"doc_id": "26b22d45a5abd729ed334c3e165be182", "text": "Petrol and diesel prices are showing another mixed back in the first week of July, which points to a similar pathway ahead for price adjustments in August as was seen this week.\nPetrol prices were cut by between 17 and 24 cents per litre on Wednesday (5 July), with diesel prices going up by between 12 and 18 cents per litre.\nThe latest daily snapshot from the Central Energy Fund (CEF) for the first week of the new month shows that prices in August might follow the same trend.\nThe group currently shows an over-recovery (potential price drop) in petrol of between 24 and 34 cents per litre for petrol, while diesel has an under-recovery (potential price increase) of between 17 and 22 cents per litre.\nWhile the start of the month is too early to pencil in any definite changes, the daily snapshots serve as a basis on which to gauge potential movements in the price.\nSpecifically, the snapshot is on the basis of a R18.86 to the dollar exchange rate at a time when oil prices are around $76 a barrel.\nThis means that any further weakening of the rand or strengthening of the oil price is likely to adversely impact the daily recoveries and push more towards a price hike for petrol and a further climb for diesel. However, the inverse is also true, with a stronger rand and lower oil price leading to a bigger cut.\nUnder pressure\nHowever, the outlook is not that rosy, with the rand weakening significantly on Friday (7 July) to once again trade above R19 to the dollar – pointing to a more negative fuel price outlook.\nAt the same time, global oil prices have also risen, with the current spot price moving above $77 a barrel.\nThe rand’s woes are rooted in global market sentiment, which is in a risk-off position following minutes from the US Federal Reserve, indicating that the States will likely continue to hike rates.\nAccording to TreasuryOne, the minutes from the June meeting indicated that most members expected at least one more hike of 25bps this year, while the rest anticipate two or more hikes will be needed.\n“A strong mention was also made about the current labour market, which remains tight, economic activity still being strong, and inflation is moving in the correct direction,” it said.\nThe dollar firmed against most currencies following the release of the minutes, but has since softened as markets await payroll and employment numbers from the US. However, the softer dollar has not aided emerging markets – including South Africa – much, as investors remain in risk-off mode.\n“The rand touched R19.15 yesterday before closing nearly 2.0% weaker at R19.12. We are currently sitting at R19.11; however, there is room for a recovery to back below R19.00, given the softer Dollar and speed of yesterday’s move,” TreasuryOne noted.\nGenerally speaking, however, the rand’s weaker position makes the cost of importing petroleum products much higher, negatively impacting fuel prices.\nOn the oil front, the commodity headed for a second weekly gain after OPEC+ leaders Saudi Arabia and Russia tightened supplies and US crude stockpiles fell, Bloomberg reported.\n“Saudi Arabia set large price increases for its crude to Europe and the Mediterranean after announcing an extension into August of its unilateral 1-million-barrel-a-day supply cut. In addition, Russia said it would reduce exports by half a million barrels, although output won’t be lowered,” it said.\nCrude remains down about 10% this year, with tighter monetary policy, China’s lacklustre recovery, and resilient Russian exports pressuring futures – however the price decreases have already been factored into the daily balance and so local fuel prices are more susceptible to short-term changes.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/702485/petrol-and-diesel-price-outlook-mixed-for-august-as-rand-hits-over-r19-to-the-dollar/"}

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+{"doc_id": "2b7d8416a044d2bc83a202bbb3f12c69", "text": "Loss-making East African Portland Cement Plc (EAPCC) #ticker:PORT plans to spend Sh425.87 million to evict squatters who occupy about a third of its vast 6,695 acres in Kikambala, Kilifi.\nThe asset-rich firm has for decades been in dispute with squatters whom it claims have illegally occupied its land.\n“Management has used significant judgement and assumptions in determining the appropriateness of classification of the encroached land as investment property and in arriving at the cost of evicting squatters,” the cement maker says in latest filings to shareholders.\n“Given the subjective nature of the estimates it is possible that outcomes that are different from the assumption could require a material adjustment to the carrying amount of the asset.”\nEAPCC’s 6,695 acres, spread on five pieces, are valued at an estimated Sh25.27 billion, according to its latest annual report for the year ending June 2021.\nMore than 2,200 acres are however occupied by squatters, but the state-run company says it is determined to repossess it.\nKenya’s oldest cement manufacturer, founded in 1933, now estimates the value of the land occupied by the squatters at about Sh8.34 billion, based on open market valuation as determined by Ark Consultants Limited and Knight Frank Valuers.\nThe litigation estimates, EAPCC says, take into consideration the assumed period it will take to evict the squatters, security resources required and their expenses as well as legal costs.\n“Despite the encroachment, the directors believe that the land occupied by squatters has an economic value to the Group based on the disposal done during the year, the offers already received for it and a commitment from the Government to facilitate eviction as necessary,” EAPCC says in the report.\n“It is therefore appropriate to continue classifying the land as investment property.”\nThe debt-ridden firm has returned to profitability after posting Sh1.8 billion in net earnings for the year ended June from Sh2.7 billion loss a year earlier, helped by gains in its land holdings and a larger tax credit.\nEAPCC booked a fair value gain of Sh5.7 billion in its investment property in the review period, up from a Sh1.1 billion gain a year earlier.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/companies/portland-to-spend-sh426-million-on-squatters-eviction-3642326"}

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+{"doc_id": "2c2ce137603a8c23643c4df2785e8f95", "text": "Rwandese authorities have approved KCB Group #ticker:KCB deal to buy Banque Populaire du Rwanda (BPR) from London-listed financial services firm Atlas Mara Limited.\nAtlas Mara made regulatory disclosures that it had obtained approvals to sell its banks in Rwanda and Botswana.\nThe firm said it was awaiting approvals from Tanzania where KCB Group has also set sights on African Banking Corporation Tanzania (BancABC).\nKCB Group announced in November it had signed a deal with Atlas Mara to buy 62.06 per cent stake in BPR and a 100 per cent stake in BancABC.\n“The Company has secured regulatory approval for the transactions with respects to its investments in Rwanda and Botswana, and parties are now in the process of concluding pre-completion conditions. Regulatory approval is pending with respect to the transaction with respect to its investment in Tanzania,” Atlas Mara said in the regulatory filing posted on its website.\nHigh rate of financial inclusion and digital banking have forced Kenyan lenders to look outside the Kenyan local markets for growth.\nMr Oigara said the transaction is part of KCB’s \"ongoing strategy to explore opportunities for new growth while investing in and maximising returns from the Group’s existing businesses.\"\nThe push for bank acquisitions has seen KCB battle with Equity Bank Group for regional domination in the race for boosting their asset base to over Sh1 trillion.\nKCB Bank and Equity Group have been top rivals, battling for superior customer base and assets to grow market share which has sent them on a trip of regional acquisitions.\nThe KCB deal came months after Equity Bank Group called off its plan to acquire four subsidiaries from Atlas Mara Limited in a move aimed at preserving its capital in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.\nThe parties had initiated talks in April last year, but the negotiations targeting Atlas Mara’s units in Rwanda, Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique dragged on until the pandemic hit.\nEquity Bank then acquired Belgian tycoon George Forrest’s 66.53 percent stake in Banque Commerciale du Congo (BCDC)for Sh10.4 billion ($95m).\nThe Kenyan lender had already bought 86 percent shareholding of ProCredit Bank between 2015 and 2017 and renamed it Equity Bank Congo, then merge it with the new acquisition to create Equity Commercial Bank of Congo (Equity BCDC) biggest foreign bank in DRC.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/companies/rwanda-now-kcb-atlas-mara-bank-deal-3478246?mc_cid=10b8753d33&mc_eid=587515234e&ref=thisweekinfintech.com"}

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+{"doc_id": "3313f4c9e271a4edfa1f66d1f7083b11", "text": "According to independent energy analyst Pieter Jordaan, South Africa’s power grid came dangerously close to pushing a new record for load shedding after he noted increasing cases of “ration creep” following the sudden escalation to stage 6 outages in November.\nProcessing the latest plant performance and power data published by Eskom, Jordaan said that Black Friday (24 November) almost became “national blackout Friday” as the national power utility’s emergency reserves were tapped dry, and there was no pumped storage to back up the grid.\nThis resulted in the sudden onset of stage 6 load shedding – which would linger for the week that followed.\nHowever, Jordaan noted that his own experience of outages on the day matched many other reports – instances of “ration creep”, where load shedding lasted longer than the planned schedules, started cropping up throughout the weekend, sometimes for an hour longer than indicated.\nWhile Eskom has never moved past stage 6 load shedding on an “official” or “national” basis, many energy experts and analysts have argued that outages have far exceeded these levels in a practical or ‘real-world’ experience.\nEnergy expert Chris Yelland recently noted that many people, including his family in Craighall Park, experience 12 hours of load-shedding daily.\nThis does not even include outages as a result of load shedding, where equipment and infrastructure break, leading to faults and other issues keeping households in the dark for much longer.\n“The level of load-shedding of ten to twelve hours per day that we are experiencing is stage 8 load-shedding,” Yelland said.\n“I know for a fact there are certain municipalities that are load-shedding certain areas differently to others – you may say in a discriminatory fashion.\n“So, it is happening where some areas experience higher load shedding stages than what is public knowledge,” he said.\nAccording to Jordaan, the draining of emergency reserves and the loss of pumped storage over the weekend of 24 November edged South Africa toward a national escalation beyond stage 6, which remains a political and psychological barrier for load shedding.\n“Eskom had no more emergency resources with which to defend the increased demand, and the psychological stage 6 barrier meant that ‘ration creep’ was the only way out,” he said.\n“Normally, in a major crisis episode, one would pick up an incursion into the 2.2 GW reserve, but there were no reserves to incur into – as these were already depleted.”\nLucky break\nFortunately for Eskom, the stage 6 load shedding and subsequent week of chaotic load shedding shifts (something which is still ongoing) helped the utility balance the supply gap and restore some semblance of stability.\n“Decreased supply against static demand did not increase blackouts due to frequent schedule changes that increased the load shedding yield,” Jordaan said.\nLooking at the data for week 48 (ending 3 December), unplanned outages dipped slightly below the 30% level where it has been stuck for the past few weeks, but this served no real benefit to energy availability due to a sharp increase in planned maintenance.\nDemand on the grid is higher than in previous years and the historic trend. This is likely due to the hotter weather, with Eskom noting previously that the heatwave hitting the country is leading to more use of aircon.\nDemand also typically ramps up leading into the festive season – though this is happening earlier than usual.\nA combination of all these factors means energy availability is stagnant, with EAF sitting at around 55% – still a long way off from the 65% target the government has set to be achieved by March 2024.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/736255/stage-7-load-shedding-south-africa-dangerously-close-to-the-edge/"}

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+{"doc_id": "34c10e06cc5f65ff187de94185739cf5", "text": "Standard Chartered Plc #ticker:SCBK is set to enter the local e-commerce business through Solv, a technology firm it first launched in India in December 2020.\nThe multinational’s local subsidiary, Standard Chartered Bank Kenya, is expected to be among the financial partners of the platform which offers small businesses an online marketplace, support services and credit from multiple lenders.\n“Expansion of Solv India tech stack to Kenya to attract financial anchors for scale with additional countries being assessed,” Standard Chartered Plc said when releasing results for the year ended December.\nThe entry of Solv marks increased interest in the country’s financial technology sector where digitisation of supply chains for small and medium-sized firms is one of the growing trends.\nSolv India says it has signed up 1,000 sellers and 30,000 buyers in the Asian country. The platform offers an online business-to-business marketplace where sellers are able to reach new and verified customers.\nBuyers on the other hand can source quality products at competitive prices from verified and pre-screened suppliers. Through Solv, businesses can access loans and invoice-based financing for orders placed on the platform.\nOther services include logistics and insurance. Standard Chartered Plc owns Solv and launched it in India through SC Ventures –its innovation, venture capital, and financial technology arm.\nIts local banking subsidiary Standard Chartered Bank Kenya, in which it holds a majority 73.89 percent stake, is expected to be among the providers of the loans to be issued on Solv.\nIt will mark StanChart’s growth and diversification outside the mainstay of corporate banking. The lender has been expanding its financial services, most of them automated, to fit its digitisation strategy.\nThe bank last year announced plans to enter the mobile lending business which has emerged as a popular means of serving retail clients.\nIt recently entered the money market fund business in partnership with Sanlam Investments East Africa and global digital wealth technology provider Bambu, allowing customers to make investments of as low as Sh1,000.\nThis adds to its wealth management business through which customers can buy and sell Kenya government debt securities on its digital platform SC Mobile app.\nStanChart reported a 46.6 percent net profit growth in the nine months ended September on the back of lower costs and higher non-interest income.\nIts net earnings in the review period stood at Sh6.3 billion, up from Sh4.3 billion a year earlier.\nThe performance saw the bank declare a surprise interim dividend of Sh5 per share.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/companies/stanchart-eyes-a-share-of-kenyas-rising-e-commerce-3732478"}

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+{"doc_id": "3530a6dd15a33f9b1ad1701b2d8ff36f", "text": "Microsoft Corp’s cloud-based software helped drive robust sales and profit growth, which topped analysts’ estimates for an 11th straight quarter.\nRevenue in the first quarter, ended Sept. 30, climbed 22% to $45.3 billion, the Redmond, Washington-based software maker said Tuesday in a statement. That exceeded the $43.9 billion average estimate of analysts polled by Bloomberg. Profit excluding a tax gain rose to $2.27 a share, compared with predictions for $2.07.\nSales forecasts by division for the current period also topped projections.\nChief executive officer Satya Nadella has extended the company’s success in cloud computing by lining up a steady stream of deals for Azure software, which stores data and runs applications for corporations. Internet-based Office programs also keep growing as Microsoft persuades customers to pay up for high-end versions and expanded contracts.\nSales of Azure and other cloud services increased 50% in the recent period, just shy of the 51% rate in the prior quarter. Sales of Office 365 to business customers rose 23%, as demand for advanced features pushed more customers to the pricier subscriptions.\n“We used to say, ‘We’re going to have a huge party if they could do greater than 10% revenue growth’ and now they’re about double that,” said Dan Morgan, a senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust Co., which owns shares of Microsoft. “It seems like Azure more recently has been kind of grabbing a little bit more market share.”\nMicrosoft shares gained about 1.6% in extended trading, after rising to $310.11 in New York. The stock increased 4.1% in the fiscal first quarter, while the S&P 500 Index was unchanged in the same period.\nOn a conference call, Microsoft said it sees Intelligent Cloud sales in the fiscal second quarter of as much as $18.4 billion, above the $17.9 billion average estimate of analysts. Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood forecast revenue in the More Personal Computing division to be as high as $16.8 billion, more than $1 billion above estimates.\nIn the past week, the software giant’s shares have hit all-time highs, reflecting investor optimism about growth prospects for Azure, Office, artificial intelligence and gaming. The company’s market capitalization sits above $2.3 trillion.\nMicrosoft revenues across product lines rise led by cloud\nIncluding the tax benefit, first-quarter net income rose to $20.5 billion, or $2.71 per share, Microsoft said. The benefit relates to Microsoft bringing some intellectual property back to the U.S., which will result in a higher overall tax rate later, Hood said in an interview.\nCloud sales to businesses in the recent quarter rose 36% to $20.7 billion, topping $20 billion for the first time, Microsoft said. Gross margin, or the percentage of sales left after subtracting production costs, in that area narrowed “slightly” to 71%, the company said in slides posted on its website. Without the impact of an accounting change, gross margin would have widened by 4 percentage points.\nIn Office software tapped via the cloud, customers are expanding the number of user subscription they’re buying and paying more for premium product tiers to get features like added security and voice controls, Hood said. She also noted strength in corporate PCs, which carry higher-priced versions of Windows.\nThe Azure business faces stiff competition from market leader Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services and No. 3 Google. While Azure revenue has been growing at a pace above 40% a quarter, investors have sometimes been disappointed when those gains slowed in certain periods.\nAzure’s growth rate has been fluctuating in recent quarters because of currency exchange rates. In the first quarter, revenue in that business increased by 48% in constant currency, compared with a constant-currency rate of 45% in the previous period.\n“Whether we’re talking about the infrastructure layer or the data layer or adopting of some of the Azure AI technologies, we’re seeing good, strong consumption growth in a broad portfolio,” Hood said.\nThe solid gains overall allayed some investor and analyst concerns that the company might not be able to keep up the pace after a strong performance in the last fiscal year, when total sales jumped 18%.\nIn the first quarter, sales by division broke down as follows:\n- Revenue in Intelligent Cloud, made up of Azure and server software, rose to $17 billion, above the $16.6 billion average estimate of analysts polled by Bloomberg.\n- In the Productivity division, mostly Office software, sales were $15 billion. Analysts had expected $14.7 billion.\n- For More Personal Computing, made up of Windows, Surface and Xbox, sales were $13.3 billion. That compares with the $12.7 billion analysts estimated.\nThe company’s Xbox business, in particular, has been held back by supply-chain snags that have meant there aren’t enough chips to keep up with console demand. Shipping slowdowns also have made it harder to get the devices, which are transported from Asia. Microsoft is working with its supply-chain partners and trying to rush delivery, Xbox chief Phil Spencer told a Wall Street Journal conference earlier this month, but the issues will persist into the coming year.\nRevenue from Xbox hardware more than doubled, though comparable sales from the year-ago period were low ahead of the release of a new version of the console, Microsoft said. Overall gaming revenue climbed 16%.\nHood said the company continues to expect Xbox demand to outpace supply as chips remain scarce.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/cloud-hosting/532444/microsofts-cloud-computing-strength-fuels-revenue-profit/"}

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+{"doc_id": "359f54b0e1c48ac21458bcc08e8c9503", "text": "South Africa’s National Treasury is considering whether it would be better to move a chunk of Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd’s R464 billion ($31 billion) of debt into a special-purpose vehicle or have the state take over responsibility for it directly, people familiar with the situation said.\nWhile banks have led discussions for the last few weeks over the creation of a so-called SPV that would take over at least R100 billion of Eskom’s debt, and possibly much more, that debt would almost certainly have to be guaranteed by the government, the three people said, asking not to be identified because an announcement hasn’t been made.\nUnder the SPV arrangement, the debt Eskom retains and any new debt it contracts would be paid off first as a priority, while that held in the SPV, which could have tenure of 10 years or more, would be last in line and would therefore likely need to be guaranteed by the state to win investor support, they said. That’s something the National Treasury will need to decide on, they said.\nFiscal Risk\nWhile either option would strengthen Eskom’s balance sheet, both risk imperiling South Africa’s credit ratings by further boosting public debt, seen climbing close to 90% of gross domestic product by 2026 even without adding the utility’s liabilities.\nThat makes the stance of major rating companies on any Eskom debt deal a factor in the government’s deliberations, the people said. Moody’s Investors Service already considers Eskom debt guaranteed by the government as sovereign debt.\nThe creation of the SPV is just “a complicated way of getting to the same result as moving it onto the sovereign,” said Jones Gondo, a credit analyst at Johannesburg-based Nedbank Group Ltd.\nEskom, described by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as the biggest threat to the South African economy, has become mired in debt as a result of overspending on projects. The utility can’t meet its costs and is subjecting the country to intermittent power outages as a result of inadequate maintenance at its aging fleet of coal-fired power plants.\nIf swapping Eskom debt for debt issued by the SPV were deemed voluntary, it wouldn’t be regarded as an involuntary change in control which would trigger a default. The SPV may be managed by the Public Investment Corp., which is state owned and is Africa’s biggest fund manager.\nEskom is not considering any default on its outstanding debt and remains in “constant discussions with the relevant stakeholders” to find a sustainable balance-sheet solution, the utility said in response to Bloomberg’s emailed questions. The National Treasury directed inquiries to Eskom.\nYields on the utility’s unsecured 2028 dollar bonds have climbed 51 basis points this month to 6.88%, widening the spread over sovereign debt to about 45 basis points.\n“Ultimately there is only one option and we are honing in on that: the sovereign taking the risk,” said Peter Attard Montalto, the London-based head of capital-markets research at Intellidex UK Ltd. “All the structures etc. are by-the-by.”", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/477910/south-africa-seeks-lesser-of-two-evils-with-eskom-debt-options/"}

clean/cc/371dc375804aa82da7f18eb98295aba7.json

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+{"doc_id": "371dc375804aa82da7f18eb98295aba7", "text": "There is a glimmer of hope in the midst of South Africa’s energy crisis – individuals and businesses are becoming more efficient in their use of electricity.\n2022 was the worst year on record in terms of load shedding, with a constant 4,000MW to 6,000MW deficit during peak demand.\nIt is estimated that load shedding in 2022 reduced potential real GDP growth by 5% and cost South Africa 600,000 potential jobs.\nThings were not always like this.\nAs recently as 2001, Eskom was awarded the Power Company of the Year Award at the Global Energy Awards in 2001.\nIn 1994, Eskom provided the most energy per capita globally at some of the cheapest rates.\nYet, in 2019 Eskom provided only 65% of the electricity per capita than it did in 1994.\nThe country’s growing population played a role, but the biggest factors were the minimal additional generation capacity added to the grid and corruption and mismanagement, which crushed Eskom.\nThe situation is causing tremendous damage to South Africa, but there is a silver lining according to efficient Group’s chief economist, Dawie Roodt.\nSouth Africans are becoming increasingly efficient in their use of electricity. This is measured using the GDP produced per 100 units of electricity.\nIn 2007, 100 units of electricity enabled you to produce 100 units of economic production. In 2022, 130 units of economic production can be produced with the same amount of electricity.\nThis indicates greater efficiency in using electricity and a reduction in using Eskom’s supply in economic production.\nThe private sector, in particular, has become increasingly independent of Eskom and self-sufficient.\nThe announcement of a 125% reduction in taxable income from investment in renewable energy by businesses aims to accelerate this trend even further.\nIn short, the private sector is taking over the supply of electricity in South Africa. Data collected by PwC supports this.\nOver the last three years, 4,550MW of private solar generation capacity has been added to the grid. It is expected to increase to 6,850MW by the end of 2023.\nPrivate-sector renewable generation will be almost on par with the total capacity of the government’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Programme (REIPPP).\nIt indicates that privatisation, although quietly, is occurring in South Africa’s electricity supply.\nHowever, as PwC notes, there are still significant hurdles to feeding private renewable energy into the grid, and South Africa will require coal-fired power for the foreseeable future.\nSolar generation will make a difference, but it is “not going to solve our problems”, according to PwC. It has to be combined with other sources of generating electricity.\nBy Shaun Jacobs. This article was first published by Daily Investor and reproduced with permission. Read the original here.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/674155/the-silver-lining-of-load-shedding-and-a-power-crisis-for-south-africa/"}

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+{"doc_id": "382c3198796a8c289c2b9959a8144577", "text": "Nearly a third of chief executive officers (CEOs) expect to hire more workers in the next three months on improving business activity, stemming rampant job losses that had been seen in the coronavirus environment.\nAbout 26.7 per cent of CEOs that took part in the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) May survey said they will increase the number of full-time employees on the back of growing sales as customer orders increase.\nThe majority (62.2) per cent of the CEOs expect to retain their current staff numbers as economic activities rise, while 2.2 per cent expect to cut workforce in the next three months.\n“Most CEOs expect business activity to strengthen in the third quarter. Respondents in the services and manufacturing sectors were the most optimistic with the majority reporting a general upward trend in business activity,” said CBK.\nThe latest survey findings—drawn from firms mostly employing between 100 and 500 workers—marks an improvement from the 10.6 per cent CEOs that had hired more workers in the second quarter as 14.9 per cent actually laid off.\nMost firms cited a highly skilled workforce as their top strength in delivering good customer service.\nAbout 1.72 million workers lost jobs in three months to June when Kenya imposed a lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus and recovery has been slow with salary cuts persisting in many sectors.\nSome 22 per cent of the CEOs had laid-off workers in the first quarter of the year as the State’s Covid-19 control measures hurt the demand for goods and services. However, the May survey has revealed increased optimism by responding CEOs on factors such as continued reopening of the economy, rollout of the vaccination programme and access to East African Community (EAC) market.\n“This optimism was mainly attributed to expected post-Covid-19 bounce-back, businesses shifting to more digitisation and anticipated increase in exports following improved relations in the EAC countries,” noted CBK.\nThe CEOs cited a more predictable tax regime, pro-growth taxation policy and faster processing of tax refunds as the key issues they would like the State to address in order to sustain growth.\nMarkit Stanbic Bank Kenya Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) had showed Kenya’s employment market conditions darkened in April as private firms cut jobs for the first time in seven months.\nThe firms were hurt by month-long curbs on travel and longer nighttime curfews in the capital Nairobi and four surrounding counties to control the spread of Covid-19.\nUnder the restrictions imposed in March but relaxed on May 1, Nairobi, Kiambu, Machakos, Kajiado and Nakuru were treated as one zone, with residents barred from travelling to other areas.\nThe State had also suspended in-person schooling and church services, closed bars and restricted restaurants to takeaway services.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/companies/third-of-ceos-see-hiring-more-staff-in-3-months-3422426"}

clean/cc/38934cc734fe438c25a01ddd25434696.json

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+{"doc_id": "38934cc734fe438c25a01ddd25434696", "text": "Ekurhuleni, the industrial hub of more than three million people to the east of Johannesburg, may have a head start in the race between South African cities to buy their own power to alleviate crippling outages imposed by the national utility.\nA program to procure as much as 700 megawatts of electricity that began in 2016 is coming to fruition, with one funder saying a project to build a 41-megawatt solar plant at a cost of about R1 billion ($64 million) will begin by the end of this year.\n“We have secured the equity, and once that closes we can finalize debt and basically start overnight,” said Justin Naidoo, the chief executive officer of African Growth Partners, which is working with five independent power producers. “We will be ready to start building the project before the end of the year.”\nSouth Africa has been subjected to intermittent planned power outages since 2008 because Eskom Holdings, the state power utility, can’t meet demand.\nCape Town and Durban, the second-and third-biggest cities, have asked for proposals for companies to provide them with power and Johannesburg, the biggest, plans to do the same.\nIn addition to reducing power cuts, the cities will also primarily source power from renewable sources, meaning that there will be less impact on global warming.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/590254/this-south-african-city-is-winning-the-race-to-get-off-eskoms-grid-and-load-shedding/"}

clean/cc/396f1772991d53f366ebd7ab026f8d70.json

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+{"doc_id": "396f1772991d53f366ebd7ab026f8d70", "text": "Riders on taxi-hailing platform Uber Kenya are set to enjoy a 25 percent discount should they opt to share a cab with fellow users going in the same direction under new options meant to raise income for drivers.\nUber said yesterday that riders opting to use the new product, dubbed ChapChap Share will get an automatic five percent discount on the normal fare – currently the lowest-priced and most preferred – even if they are not matched to share the ride with a fellow user.\nThey will, however, see this discount bumped up to 25 percent should they get matched with another rider on the same trip to share the cab.\nThe product has been designed for the city’s busiest commuting periods and will be available from 5am to 6pm.\n“We have seen a number of people traveling at the same direction roughly at the same time. ChapChap Share allows you to tap into further savings by sharing your ride with somebody who is going along the same path as you,” said Imran Manji, Uber Head of East Africa\n“There will be a small detour to pick or drop the other user…but for a small increase in time taken to get to your destination, you can enjoy the discounts on the fare.”\nThe product targets to reduce costs for riders while pulling them into the app, and increase demand for drivers following a drop in the number of trips ordered in a month over biting cost of living and declining disposable income.\nThe US-based firm has expressed fears of a mismatch in the demand of rides and the supply of drivers on the high inflation and fuel price as trip orders are yet to fully recover to pre-Covid levels, despite the high number of drivers on the platform.\nIt places Nairobi among the top three markets in Africa out of the 61 cities in seven countries it has operations. The firm now hopes the ride-share option will incentivise riders in a market where people are not used to taking rides to work.\nIt will also launch Uber XL on September 19, a feature targeting large groups to travel together of up to six people set to utilise large capacity vehicles.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/shipping-logistics/uber-offers-riders-25pc-discount-on-cab-share-plan-3939304"}

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+{"doc_id": "39eccbf64277f95b20f87789003e795b", "text": "When finance minister, Enoch Godongwana, delivers his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) towards the end of the month, he will need to focus on policies that accelerate real economic growth and address the financial future of Eskom, say wealth management specialists at Citadel.\nMaarten Ackerman, chief economist at Citadel, says all eyes will be on Godongwana to see if he will prioritise pragmatic policies that stimulate real business growth and job creation, instead of bowing to populist pressures that prioritise social spending but have no lasting positive impact on the country.\n“South Africa is still stuck in a balancing act between weak growth and populist needs that will continue indefinitely, such as the Basic Income Grant,” said Ackerman. As a country, it is vital that South Africa gets the economy going to address poverty and inequality in a sustainable way.\n“In terms of South Africa’s macro-economic outlook, it’s essential to note that there was yet another revenue windfall in addition to the revenue overruns in recent years. So, we’ll need to see what the finance minister does with that. We’d like to see the windfalls being used productively – not just on once-off, temporary social spending that does little to nothing to drive economic growth,” the economist said.\nFrom an investment perspective, Citadel’s chief investment officer, George Herman, urges Godongwana to address the Eskom situation. “We would appreciate any guidance the finance minister can give in terms of the intention to de-leverage the Eskom balance sheet. I think and hope that is going to be a core focus of the 2022 MTBPS,” said Herman.\nEskom has requested that the government relieve its debt balance sheet of approximately R200 billion, while recently informing the Standing Committee on Public Accounts that it was carrying a total debt burden of approximately R400 billion, which could not be serviced due to its current cashflows and liquidity problems.\nIt was also facing outstanding municipal debt to the tune of around R40 billion.\nIt was recently reported that Eskom expects to receive tranches of R20 billion of taxpayers’ money over the next few years to deal with its debt-servicing commitments, much to the dismay of taxpayers who are already paying for a service they are not fully receiving as a result of the rolling blackouts, which have recently escalated.\nIn 2021, Citadel also expressed the hope that the minister would be prudent and use the opportunity presented by additional revenue to get the country out of its “very tight fiscal position”. At the time, Ackerman said: “If we don’t get the economy going very soon, we might have some further fiscal challenges in the next two to three years.” Today, fiscal reform is still a great priority.\nColin Coleman, the former MD of Goldman Sachs in Sub-Saharan Africa, told BusinessLive that the budget is about more than making the numbers look good for the ratings agencies. “It’s about how we’re breaking out of our structural constraints and problems.”\n“Yes, the benefit of fiscal consolidation is to reduce the cost of capital to increase investment, but that’s an insufficient condition for investment,” he said.\nColeman stressed that the budget also needs to address the “festering sore” that includes unemployment, lawlessness, corruption, public mismanagement, and the country’s structural low-growth issue.\nDeep structural woes at Eskom\nIntellidex chair, Stuart Theobald said that South Africans know that the country is deeply rooted in an energy crisis, but may not understand the staggering challenge that lies ahead of it.\nThe analyst noted this past week that, based on outdated estimates in the country’s 2019 Integrated Resource Plan, it will need to procure and develop approximately 78,000 MW of energy capacity by 2030.\nBy 2035, however, 12 of Eskom’s 15 coal plants will have retired, wiping 33,000MW from the grid. If an optimistic plan by the government to get newer stations like Medupi and Kusile fully operational and the lifetime of Koeberg is extended, this means that South Africa needs to get at least 50,000MW of new energy on-grid over the next 12 years, Theobald said.\nThis is a ‘stupifying’ amount of energy required, he said, and South Africa faces an incredible challenge on two key fronts: cost and politics.\nOn the former, the Intellidex chair said that even leaning into cheaper energy technologies like renewables will carry immense costs.\n“Solar photovoltaic and onshore wind is now much cheaper than fossil fuel production, but you need storage to even out supply capacity. Based on current global capital costs for different types of technologies, we need to invest R1.8 trillion to R3 trillion to build that capacity, depending on technology spread,” he said.\n“And that doesn’t even consider the investment required to expand the grid to handle the volumes.”\nThe analyst noted that this cost is staggering – accounting for up to half of South Africa’s entire GDP, and even spread over 10 years, is equivalent to the total spend of a Medupi every year.\nOn top of the cost, South Africa’s energy sector also has to deal with the other massive hurdle: the government.\nTheobald noted that the country is awaiting the results of a 9,600GW energy bid window, but historically, politics and generally poor management of procurement have delivered very little.\nUrgent procurement of 2,000MW of energy ended up delivering only 150MW, and the most recent bid window saw only three projects – out of 25 – deliver, totalling 420MW. The analyst said that the country has managed to deliver only 1,400MW of new energy over the last few years.\nMeeting the challenge\nWhile the challenge appears insurmountable, Eskom itself is quite optimistic that it is able to meet it.\nPresenting at the Africa Renewable Energy Investment Summit in September, Eskom chief executive officer Andre de Ruyter outlined the group’s strategy to tackle the new generation problem, emphasising a strong focus on renewables as the way forward.\nCompared to coal, renewable projects like wind and solar farms cost less to build, can come online in less than two years, and can ensure that the country can protect its power exports amid rising carbon tariffs, he said.\nIn contrast, new coal builds would come at double or even quadruple the cost, take up to 12 years to complete – which would result in even more load shedding – and would put 46% of South Africa’s exports at risk as the country would fail to decarbonise.\nBy the end of 2024, de Ruyter said that most of the 33,000MW shortfall caused by the decommissioning of power stations will be covered by new projects, including:\n- 3,500MW from the Seriti renewables projects\n- 1,440MW from Kusile entering full operation\n- 2,000MW from independent power producers (IPPs) on leased land\n- 3,500MW from new pumped storage\n- 1,500MW from municipal procurement\n- 2,600MW from REIPPP 5 projects\n- 5,200MW from REIPPP 6 projects\n- 7,000+MW from other projects\nThis energy shift is not cheap, however, with the CEO pointing out that R1.2 trillion will be needed to realise the transition.\nAdding firm capacity of 7,000MW, variable capacity from renewables totalling 50,000MW and storage capacity of 10,000MW will cost approximately R990 billion to realise by 2035, he said.\nExpanding and strengthening the power utility’s transmission network over 8,000km of new lines and installing 101 new substations will cost another R130 billion. Boosting the distribution capacity will add another R56 billion to the mix.\nMeeting demand for economic growth\nEskom can’t meet demand and has imposed a record number of days of blackouts so far in 2022, according to Bloomberg calculations.\nLoad-shedding is projected to shave 1 percentage point off economic growth this year. The South African Reserve Bank lowered its gross domestic product growth forecast to 1.9% from 2% in September.\nReforms aimed at alleviating South Africa’s energy crisis could raise real private investment in the energy sector by as much as 15% per year from 2023 to 2025 and raise economic growth by about 0.9 percentage points over the first year, the central bank said.\n“Investment in energy has the potential to crowd in other productive investment, creating a virtuous cycle,” the bank said in its six-monthly Monetary Policy Review, as reported by Bloomberg.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/633823/staggering-challenge-ahead-for-south-africa/"}

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+{"doc_id": "3adaeaf36ad3fd8e16237bd9a95d5d49", "text": "South Africa must implement reforms to boost private-sector investment, promote good governance and improve the efficiency of public spending to shore up an economy hamstrung by rolling blackouts, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said.\nSevere power outages, known locally as load shedding, coupled with softer commodity prices mean Africa’s most industrialized economy will probably only grow 0.1% in 2023, the IMF said Wednesday after a staff visit to South Africa.\nThis compares with its January estimate of 1.2% and the National Treasury’s projection of 0.9%.\nState-owned company Eskom implemented daily blackouts for more than 200 days last year and on all but one day of 2023. The rolling outages, which started in 2008, are needed to protect the grid from collapse when the company’s old and mostly coal-fired plants can’t meet demand.\nThe National Treasury is aware of “most of the risks to economic growth” flagged by the lender and is working on measures to address them, it said in a statement. It plans to respond to more detailed analysis and recommendations when the IMF publishes an Article IV report on the country.\nReforms aimed at restoring energy security that attracts private-sector participation in the electricity market and addresses Eskom’s operational and financial challenges may help to bolster output growth and create jobs, said the IMF.\nIf implemented, a R254 billion ($13.9 billion) debt-relief strategy the Treasury has announced for Eskom “should ensure material improvement in the company’s operation and establish its long-term viability,” it said.\nStill, it warned that the plan, together with continued support for other loss-making state companies, spending on temporary welfare grants and increased debt-service costs, will see the budget deficit widen to 6.5% of GDP in the fiscal year ending March 2024, and deteriorate further through 2026.\nCreating the conditions for higher economic growth and a reduction in South Africa’s debt vulnerabilities will require stronger fiscal consolidation efforts, including plans to reduce the public-sector wage bill and transfers to state companies while protecting well-targeted social spending and productive public investments, the IMF said.\n“South Africa’s public debt is among the highest in emerging markets and is set to continue rising on current policies,” the lender said. “This leaves limited fiscal space to respond to adverse shocks, including contingent liabilities from state-owned enterprises, social spending needs, and climate events. It also exposes the government to increasing borrowing costs, diverting limited resources away from more productive capital and social spending.”\nThe IMF also recommended that authorities work to broaden the tax base, strengthen the fiscal framework by introducing a debt ceiling, address shortfalls in public procurement and improve public investment management. Last month, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana ruled out introducing a new fiscal anchor in the country’s budget framework.", "source": "cc", "stratum": "cc", "fetch_date": "", "url": "https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/674545/imf-slashes-south-africas-gdp-growth-forecast-for-2023/"}